Nothing Interesting In Life Is Planned
by Genjutsu-Dragon
Summary: Itachi is tired of his younger brother taking everything in his life for granted. So he removes the one person whom Sasuke doesn't think he'll miss. Itachi plans to break Sasuke's heart...but he may just give his away.
1. Chapter 1

This is in response to a request on one of my other fanfics from a reviewer. I will say right off it is ItaSaku. Some people may say that it is OOC for Itachi to even fall for Sakura, but I'm ignoring that. I'm not going to make it silly, though. If you don't like this pairing, please do not bother me with flames. Or read the story. Find a pairing you like on Ffnet, it's created to pander to everybody's tastes. Ok?

Summary: Sakura has grown powerful beyond anything anyone every dreamed, but it is still not enough for the man she loves. (Yup, some SasuSaku, but bear out it doesn't last long). Itachi has been acting off in the manga recently, so I am simply going to ignore the whole 'enticing the Kyuubi' scenario for now. He thinks it is time to test his brother's loyalties.

1

Sasuke sat by the training grounds and watched as Sakura pummelled Naruto into the dirt time and again. He'd already used up most of his chakra fighting Naruto's two-tailed Kyuubi form and although he had managed to temporarily disable him there was no beating the guy. Sasuke conceded that Naruto had grown stronger by a long way.

Sakura, though…

Oh, she was stronger, no doubt about that. The Slug Tamer's student did her sempai proud. As well as her abilities with medical chakra, and insane strength, she was more mature. She didn't follow him around quite so much on his return from Orochimaru's. There had been one request to join her for dinner at a local restaurant, where she would have gone whether he came or not. When he declined, she had not asked again. The end of the relentless 'Sasuke-kun's had come as a great relief.

But somehow, he remained unsatisfied with her. He knew that she still wanted acknowledgment, at least, from him, and he refused to give it to her. It would feel degrading to him. He had always been so high above them – when telling her off he said, bluntly, that she was 'even weaker than Naruto'. It was a state of affairs he felt uncomfortable thinking about, because it had changed. Back then he was the star, Naruto vainly struggling to reach his level and Sakura neglecting her training to glorify Sasuke further.

He felt that, if he treated her in the same way as he had back then, she might return to worshipping him. Sasuke's pride was all-consuming; he had hated his fangirls back then, but the thought that one of them might have surpassed him was so sickening that he would take the fangirls.

She and Naruto had learnt kendo as well. Sasuke still carried Orochimaru's sword, and it suited him. Naruto hefted a great blade across his back that could hack like a meat clever, but wasn't much good for short-range fighting. Sakura's sword was a traditional katana, with a hook of metal on the outside edge, right near the hilt. It was to embed the weapon in an enemy's flesh, and could be retracted at Sakura's will. Sakura had taken to the sword as well as she had taken to every discipline she had been taught. Everyone underestimated Sakura, and she pressed her advantage for all she was worth.

Sasuke made up his mind to ignore her as much as possible. Not that they spoke much. Sakura usually spoke to Sai, ignoring Naruto's yells and Kakashi with his nose in his porn once again. Recently Sasuke had taken to going for sake with Neji after training or missions, the pair of them geniuses who's pride had led, at some point, to their humiliation.

He stood and walked back to his apartment. He had sold off the massive Uchiha estate and was well off for it. There were too many bad memories lurking amongst those walls, and the knowledge that as yet he had failed to compensate for them was almost too much to bear.

As he walked, he knew he was being watched. He put it down to one of his team-mates checking on him and ignored it.

**1**

"Hn."

Itachi crouched in the middle of the tree and thought hard. Akatsuki had disbanded since Paine had been killed. As far as everyone was concerned, he was the leader. Which meant that Itachi could ignore the Kyuubi and concentrate on his brother.

In a twisted way, he was proud of what his brother had become. He had betrayed all his friends for power and failed to become as powerful as they; he was one of the highest-ranked nins in the Bingo Book. But at the same time, he felt that Sasuke had failed to learn some of the lessons Itachi had set out for him. He saw his brother's arrogance and his refusal to believe he wasn't on top any more. He needed to be taught the value of connections. Not bonds. Connections. Links with other powerful nins made you strong. Itachi was weaker for having lost the Akatsuki, but he was still more powerful that Sasuke in his own right.

The most obvious solution was to remove one of his brother's team-mates to get him back on track to looking for Itachi. It would certainly anger him. Murdering one of them would suffice, but Itachi felt a sudden impulse. He rarely acted on impulse, but this was a good one. He would capture one. He would see how well Sasuke would respond to hope. He would make his brother pray desperately that his team-mate remained alive. If he failed to do so, Itachi would kill the victim and then destroy his brother. Utterly. Letting him know he was more worthless than Itachi because he did not feel anything for a friend.

That matter resolved, Itachi turned his mind to the next step. Whoever he picked as a kidnap victim would create a new series of problems for him; namely, where to keep them and how to restrain them. He also had to ensure that Sasuke could find it, but not too easily, and that there was an area for a final showdown with the younger Uchiha.

Fortunately, such a place existed – courtesy of Orochimaru. Far off in the Stone Country, an underground labyrinth built by the snake Sannin contained everything he needed to sustain a lengthy capture. The finer tailoring of restraints depended on which person he chose.

Kakashi was out of the question. He also had a Mangekyo Sharingan, and was damn near impossible to capture. Yamato, with the First Hokage's abilities, likewise. Sai was not important to Sasuke, and Naruto was still too well guarded. That just left the kunoichi.

Itachi shut his eyes as he began to work out the finer details of his plan.

**1**

Sakura trailed home, stomach growling for food. Her mind was on Sasuke. She had trained and trained to try to bring the bastard home – and then he had returned himself. And then she forced herself further to prove to him that she had changed, that she was worthy at least of his attention. She'd spent hours outside of training honing her skills with her blade, having attracted the leadership of an ANBU weapons expert to help her. Her medic skills and strength surpassed Tsunade's. She'd trained herself to stop hitting people whenever they pissed her off slightly, taking a new, more relaxed approach to life.

And still Sasuke didn't look her way.

She let herself into the apartment and tore off the end of a loaf, some cheese and grabbed an apple. She then settled down to work on a new jutsu she was developing. Sakura's strength had never been ninjutsu – her "Sakura Blizzard" technique wasn't much good against swift enemies.

A knock on the door distracted her and she decided to take a break tonight. Her head was aching a bit and it would be good to get some rest. She wandered over to the door to find Sai standing outside.

"Hey, Hag," he smiled, holding up a bag from a take-away up the street. "I figured you'd be too tired to eat some real food, so I got you your Peking Duck and prawn toast." Sakura gave a sigh of relief that it wasn't Naruto. She liked the guy, but he would be a bit too much at this time.

"Sai, you're a lifesaver. Come in, I have no willpower to do this work and I feel like slumping for a bit."

Sai and Sakura had forged an bond after saving each others' lives repeatedly. There had been times before now when they had just spent the night at each other's house (creating a goldmine for the gossips the next day), watching stupid films and going out to the 24-hour takeaway for more sustenance every now and again. It was a quiet companionship they both enjoyed, and they teased each other well. Despite Ino's protests, though, Sakura knew that she could never be attracted to Sai. He was just too like Sasuke – a gentler, more considerate Sasuke – that she couldn't fall in love with him. Sometimes she desperately wished she could.

Walking into the living room, Sakura slotted the latest martial arts 'epic' into the DVD player as Sai banged around in the kitchen fetching plates and glasses. The two of them then settled down for a period of mindless violence and junk food.

**1**

Sasuke froze. He felt a sinister chakra that brush against his own, velvety and cloying, utterly disgusting. He knew that chakra. Itachi had flared it to Sasuke know where he was. But why would he attract attention like that? In the middle of Konoha, crawling with high-class shinobi?

It was the supreme confidence of the Uchiha clan again. Sasuke followed the trail, which stopped outside Naruto's apartment, causing Sasuke's heart to hammer against his ribs for a minute. But a brief glance through the window confirmed that nothing had happened – Naruto was fast asleep, snoring like a log. After checking to see that it was Naruto and not a replacement, Sasuke cursed. The trail had stopped. What happened?

A though occurred then. Sasuke decided to check on his other team-mates. He would just stick his head through the window at Sakura's, he wouldn't wake her. She lived on the far side of town, though. He decided to wait until practice the next day to see if she was all right.

**1**

Itachi grunted. He had not counted on a member of ROOT being present at Sakura's house. The false trail he had laid for the ANBU to draw them as far away as possible from his real destination had been in vain.

Itachi was a patient man normally, but tonight he could not afford to hang around. The longer he had to stay in Konoha the more inconvenient it was for him. He shut his eyes and his hands flashed together.

Inside the apartment, Sai was the first to realise something was wrong. The furniture was melting apart and the walls were twisting. Colour was leaking out of everything.

"Sakura! It's a genjutsu!" He yelled. He went to clap his hands together in the release seal but vines shot from the walls and pinned his arms and legs down. The same happened to Sakura before she could move. As she opened her mouth to yell, both shinobi were gagged with leaves.

Then a sleeping gas came creeping into the room. As Sai used his ROOT training to fight it off for as long as he could, he saw a figure come into the room and pick up Sakura's limp body.

"Tell Sasuke that this could have been avoided if he was less self-obsessed," Itachi said, fully aware that Sai was not out yet. He jumped onto the roof and then leapt towards the fence, before disappearing into the forests surrounding Konoha with his captive.

**1**

While I am aware that there should have been a big fight scene for Sakura, I think it affords her more respect if Itachi had to plan to wait until her guards were down before immobilising her and knocking her out – it shows he respects her powers, yeah?

**Anyway, R & R per favore, or the next chapter don't go up.**

**- Genjutsu-Dragon.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Nice response from the reviewers, molto grazie. As always with my stories I do not know how the plot will unfold, so if you have an idea for me, pitch it. I do request fics as well so if you'd like me to try a certain pairing just ask. I'm warning now that while there will be hints of physicality between Itachi and Sakura, serious ItaSaku stuff will not happen for a couple of chapters. It is in the nature of neither character to fall head over heels within a few days. **

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Kishimoto, character abuse is mine.**

**Genjutsu-Dragon**

**1**

It didn't take long for the story to spread like wildfire through the ninja community of the village. Tsunade's beloved apprentice had been captured by none other than Uchiha Itachi. Jiraiya's contacts had reported only the previous day that Akatsuki was no more and Naruto was safe – why had Itachi taken Sakura? It took little time to figure out once Sai reported what Itachi had said.

Tsunade wasted no time in setting three ANBU teams on the stream of confusing trails that Itachi had patiently set up before he went for Sakura. Even Kakashi's team of nin-dogs were having serious difficulty distinguishing the real trail from the many false ones. Naruto was pelting around the village at high speed, his eyes glowing red behind his ANBU mask. Sai was with the interrogation unit, trying to work out what clues Itachi had left behind in the apartment other than his verbal warning to Sasuke.

Sasuke was in a deep sleep.

His rage when Sai had passed on the message was terrible to see. Shizune had only waited five seconds before ordering that he should be held down and drugged – everyone knew that he would leave the village on his own come what may, but Tsunade wanted him to be fully ready before he did. When he woke up, his anger would be replaced with a cold intent and a clear head.

As the hue and cry continued, Kakashi was sitting on a roof, thinking. He had observed how Sasuke had pointed ignored Sakura since his return. So Itachi had taken Sakura to let Sasuke know how much he really cared about her, but too late. It seemed an out-of-character thing for Itachi to do. Normally he would have simply slit Sakura's throat.

Naruto landed in front of him and ripped off his mask. He glared down at Kakashi.

"Why aren't you moving, sensei?" he roared. "Don't you care about Sakura?"

"I care about her a great deal," Kakashi said evenly. "Which is why I am not losing my head. I cannot afford to do that in anything concerning Itachi. My nin-dogs are picking up her trail and I am figuring out Itachi's motives in capturing rather than killing her." Naruto calmed a little. Kakashi looked up at his ex-student. He'd matured so much. They all had.

And with no help from me. 

Kakashi had long been unsettled about how well he had taught the only three students he had ever passed. Sasuke got the best of him, certainly, and even that wasn't enough for the avenging Uchiha. Naruto he had only started teaching seriously when it became a matter of village security that the Bijuu carrier did not fall into the wrong hands. And Sakura had never been taught anything by him. She worked out how to mold chakra on her own, and improved on the basic techniques taught to her by the Academy with constant training. It was only when she worked under Tsunade that she started to become the incredible kunoichi she was today. Kakashi felt he'd failed. The one he ignored, the girl he had written off, was today one of his closest friends and didn't seem to begrudge his lack of attention in the past. She was the strongest of the three. Oh, Naruto and Sasuke could beat her in chakra volumes and knew more impressive jutsus. But she was the medic, the silent killer, the one who had grown strong almost entirely on her own.

Kakashi could claim no credit for how she was now.

But as a result, he was determined to male up his neglect of her somehow. He had to try and find her. Sasuke would be going after her in the morning after the drug had worn off, but that would almost certainly lead to a showdown between the two Uchihas and Sakura would probably get hurt in the process. Kakashi's only desire was to retrieve Sakura.

Only a few more hours until dawn…

**1**

Sakura forced her eyelids open and struggled to focus on her surroundings. As soon as she'd regained consciousness, she'd known that she was in trouble. Her muscles felt like mush and she could not summon any chakra at all. Strong rope twisted around her whole body; her hands were tied in a praying position in front of her chest, palms flat against each other so that she couldn't form seals. She could feel her chakra seeping out through each arm.

_Chakra drain tags_, she thought fuzzily.

As the effects of the gas wore off, she wriggled into an upright position and looked around. She was in a small, bare room, with no window. It looked like one of the ANBU cells. But what would she being doing in an ANBU cell?

_Okay, calm down Sakura_, she told herself. _Try to remember what happened last night_. She remembered settling down in front of a film with Sai, she remembered the gas…_ah. Gas. I've been captured by an enemy nin, then. Why?_

There was no point thinking about that question until her captor showed themselves. She had no clues in this tiny room, and she had not seen the enemy at all; the gas had knocked her out so quickly. She cursed. She was an ANBU, she was supposed to have her guard up at all times. But she simply had not been expecting an attack right in her apartment.

_Okay, motives,_ she thought. _Number one; ransom from Tsunade. Unfortunately it is widely known that she's my senpai and we care for each other. But it seems unlikely somebody would have gone to this trouble for a ransom demand when they could have captured an important non-ninja._

_Number two: revenge. Survivor of a ANBU mission has captured me because they have a personal grudge._ Also unlikely. While she was the only pink-haired ninja in the village, it would have been hard to identify her. Most of the people who saw her in her ANBU getup on a mission ended up dead. Also, again, it would have been less trouble to ambush somebody already out on a mission.

_Number three: bait_. _Akatsuki may have gone, but I could be bait for somebody whom my captor wants to lure out of the village._ Sakura felt sick. This helpless, useless feeling that she had almost completely destroyed suddenly came back two-fold. If this was the case, her captor still felt that she was one of the weaker shinobi and she might end up being the cause of death of one of her team-mates.

She shut off that section of her mind and strained her hearing. Footsteps. Whoever was coming wanted to be heard. No second-class nin would be fooled by her pretending to be asleep, so she remained upright, humiliatingly aware that the way she was tied up would make it look as though she was bowing to whoever entered.

The first thing she was aware of was crimson eyes.

Oh no… 

Itachi looked down at his captive with an expression of complete boredom. His mind was ticking away quietly as the two nins sized each other up. There was a long period of silence, which upped the tension in the air until it could almost be cut with a knife.

Sakura knew her fear would be coming off her in waves, but tried not to let it appear in her eyes. Itachi, unlike his brother, respected power and maintaining control over her emotions could only benefit her. Itachi gave the signature Uchiha 'hn', and pointed at Sakura. The walls started to swirl and her ropes shifted around her, freeing up her legs and binding her wrists slightly behind her. The two chakra tags on her shoulders glowed and the draining sensation ceased. He walked over to her and replaced them with chakra suppressant tags – now she could not accumulate any more chakra. The tiny area of skin which Itachi brushed as he changed the tags prickled, and Sakura felt an overwhelming sense of revulsion. Looking into his eyes – as so few had done and lived – she was aware that he had done it on purpose to test her reaction to him. Apparently satisfied, he made an 'up' motion with his hand and pointed to the door.

"Walk."

Sakura's room was at the end of a long corridor. She walked along, her arm muscles aching from the odd way they were twisted and her skin chafing against the rope, heading for the large open area at the other end. She felt sick, listening to Itachi's footsteps behind her. What was he thinking? Why had she, in particular, been taken? Was the rest of the Akatsuki involved?

In the middle of the room was a large table.

"Sit."

"I am not a bloody dog," Sakura snapped, then felt all her organs cringe in fear as he appeared in front of her, staring right into her eyes. _Not smart!_ She looked away fast and knelt on one of the cushions. Itachi sat on the opposite side.

"Why am I here?" _Bad move again_, Sakura thought as Itachi closed his eyes. Too blunt. And too fast. Itachi would go at his own speed and nobody else's. It took him a few seconds to reply.

"My brother has taken you for granted," he said. Sakura winced. _Tell me something I didn't know_. "But few people can take friendship for granted in their life. Few people can count on forgiveness for every sin. I have removed you from my brother's life to let him know that he can never take such things so. He took his family for granted. I took it away. He took his superiority over me as granted at the age of twelve. I took that away. Now he takes you for granted. So I took you away."

Sakura stared at him. That was it? She was a tool to torture Sasuke because of his bad treatment of her as a friend?

It didn't seem like something Itachi would do, reminding his brother of life's priorities.

But now what?

Itachi predicted her question as her mouth opened.

"We wait," he said. "Only Sasuke will be able to follow the trail I left. I want to observe to what lengths he will go when he realises that once again he has lost something he loved because of neglect."

"He doesn't love me," Sakura said sharply, the words hurting her as she said them. "He barely tolerates me."

"No. He loves you as a friend – a friend only, mind – but he doesn't let you know it. He doesn't go the extra mile for his friends. It could have been anybody from team Kakashi – but I chose you."

"Why, because I'm the weakest? You know, I'm actually a hell of a lot stronger than him," Sakura was yelling, her suppressed rage pouring out now. "He left his old life and his friends and tried to kill one of them for power, just to kill you. Even Naruto left the village to train under a Sannin, undisrupted by unnecessary missions. I stayed, I worked myself half to death in the hospital saving everyone I could, I grew strong because of Tsunade's training but also my own work! I didn't sacrifice my values or my friends. I stayed in service of the village I love and that's how I learnt everything I know now! Sasuke has more chakra than me but he's afraid to fight me! How does that make me the weakest of the team?!"

Itachi sat back and watched her. She'd lost her cool, against one of the key shinobi rules, and against him no less. Very few people would have dared. He watched as realisation crossed her face and she sat back down, the colour in her face draining away. She was preparing for some sort of pain.

"I didn't choose who to capture based on power," he said. "Naruto was on a local ANBU mission at the time, surrounded by many others. Too much trouble. Kakashi is impossible to capture. Yamato and Sai are not really connected to Sasuke. But the main reason I chose you is because it is you, specifically, whom Sasuke neglects. Whom he thinks is such an insignificant part of his life that he won't miss you. Seeing you train strikes a blow to his ego."

Sakura stared at him. Itachi shut his eyes, waiting for the next question.

"What happens when he arrives?"

"He will attempt to kill me," Itachi said. "I will humiliate him, and then threaten your life. If he shows no emotion, you will die, but I will ensure it takes long enough that you see if Sasuke is enraged by your death – or left cold by it. If the latter, I will kill him. That you will see as well before you die."

Sakura felt cold tendrils of fear. Itachi seems fairly positive that he would kill her at some point. She swallowed the lump in her throat and asked, "What if he does show emotion?"

"I will pretend to kill you. It will be a genjutsu. Sasuke will have just long enough to kill me before it wears off."

"Why?"

There was no answer forthcoming. Itachi stood up and motioned for her to do the same. Sakura didn't move.

Then he was standing behind her and Sakura felt the temperature drop as he came within a foot of her. He caught her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. Once again, her skin crawled with disgust at the touch of this maniac.

"Move."

He lead her to a much larger and more comfortably furnished room, that will still no more than a cell.

"Tomorrow the bindings will be removed. With the chakra tags you will be no threat, and I will always know where you are. Don't try anything foolish." The door slammed behind Sakura and she collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, the pins and needles in her arms beginning as she lay on her bound wrists.

**1**

Yeah, I know I made Itachi a bit more talkative than usual, but I wanted everyone to be clear what his plan is. Of course, his reasons why will be uncovered in later chapters. I found the ItaSaku scene in this chapter a lot easier to write than the beginning, so sorry if it feels bit stilted. Read and review sil vous plait! 

**-Genjutsu Dragon**


	3. Chapter 3

**Once again, I am knocked sideways by the fact I have no bad reviews. Thanks guys! Also, thanks for constructive critism, I need it. Here's a thing though – I've noticed that a large number of people have added this story to their Story Alert list. I like this very much :D But I like comments too! They flatter me, making me a happier and more productive writer, which equals faster updates – which is what y'all want, right? Cheers!**

**Also, noted that one reviewer thought I wrote that the Akatsuki considered Itachi their leader in the first chapter. It was a rather ambiguous sentence, but I was actually talking about Pein/Paine/however you spell his name. As he is dead, the Akatsuki currently does not exist, allowing me to make Itachi do his own thing.**

**You know the drill, I fictionally abuse Kishimoto's characters for my own fun. Although getting to spend real time with Kiba, Sai, Neji, Gaara, and Itachi would not be half bad (stops writing and starts drooling).**

**Genjutsu Dragon**

**1**

Itachi stood in the doorway, watching Sakura sleep. She was on her front, drooling into the pillow – she could not lie any other way or her arms would fall asleep.

What was it about this kunoichi that had made her special, he wondered. Haruno was not a clan name as far as he could recall. They did not turn out geniuses with the regularity of the Uchihas. He could vaguely remember her as an Academy student bugging his brother all the way home. She was physically weak at the time and easily frightened.

So how had she earned the reputation she had without sacrificing anything?

It went against Itachi's self-made theories of how things worked. Every powerful shinobi he knew had sacrificed or destroyed something to become who they were. The Jinchuuriki were powerful at the expense of respect from fellow villagers. All the Akatsuki had murdered freely. The Sannins, Sasuke, all the great Uchihas – so how had this kunoichi lived a normal childhood and grown stronger just from losing one friend – a friend that didn't even die?

Leaving that line of thought, he pursued another while examining Sakura closer. Her muscles were well defined but she was so slender she looked as though a gust of wind would knock her down – which he supposed worked to Sakura's advantage. She could now allow people to underestimate her, knowing that they were wrong. He supposed that was how she had not only earned her reputation as a skilled fighter, but also a deadly assassin. The pink hair was a trademark now; if enemy nins saw it behind an ANBU mask it was wise to get away as fast as possible.

Sakura stirred and Itachi moved away. Doubtless her arms would be quite painful to move this morning, but he was pretty sure she would still try to hurt him if she was aware that he'd been observing her as she slept. He left the room and moved into the dining area, knelt and shut his eyes, waiting.

Sakura experimentally flexed her fingers and winced. A surge of cramping pain shot through her muscles, and Sakura bit down hard on her lip to suppress a yell of pain. Carefully, she moved off the bed and spat. She felt disgusting. She knew her face had pillow marks and she could feel where a line of spit had dried on her chain. Her hair felt greasy and horrible. Somehow, she would feel so much more prepared for this situation if she were clean.

Hesitantly, she walked out the room and along to where she remembered the dining room to be. Itachi hadn't moved, but as she came in he turned slightly to look at her. Sakura couldn't help but hitch her breath as she saw those oh-so-familiar crimson eyes, looking at her with the same bored expression as Sasuke, above the large cloak collar.

Sakura shut her own eyes for a second and frowned.

_This is Itachi, not Sasuke. _

When she opened them again, her mind was clear. She saw the long black hair, the lines beneath his eyes, the slight scar just above his eyebrow – things that Sasuke did not possess. Itachi felt her intense examination of him and smirked behind the collar.

Sakura was so affected by his looks because his brother, so similar, had never met her eyes in the same way he was now – that searching, now faintly curious expression. Sasuke never even made eye contact with her these days.

"Haruno-san," he said, startling her slightly. "I will release those bonds now." He blinked once and the ropes melted away into the air. Sakura stared at her wrists. After a night of being tied so tightly, they should have rough chafe marks on them – but the skin was clear and unmarked. At the same time, the ache in her muscles vanished.

_That…that was a genjutsu?_

She had forgotten that around Itachi, you could never be sure what was reality and what wasn't – especially if you were his enemy. She sat at the opposite side of the table to him, observing him. He might not even really be here, for all she knew. Itachi inclined his head slightly.

"You'll be hungry," he said, uncovering a couple of steaming bowls of soup on the table. "Eat." Sakura stared at him.

"Ne…wouldn't it be easier to starve me and keep me weak for when Sasuke arrives?"

"Those tags on your arms have sealed your chakra at the lowest possible level above zero," Itachi stated. "Even were he to arrive this second, and remove them, you would still need a day or so to recharge your chakra. Besides, you are somewhat more likely to be unco-operative if you are hungry." Sakura nodded and took the food gratefully. Itachi opened his collar just enough for him to slip spoonfuls of soup in and pulled a bowl towards him.

_This is so weird_. Sakura was finding it hard to believe that she was sitting across the table from a mass murderer, an S-Class criminal, watching him eat soup. Briefly her eyes focused on his mouth as it opened and again she saw Sasuke, super-imposed over Itachi. _The Uchihas have soft mouths for such cruel people_, she mused. Slowly she dipped her spoon into her soup and was about to eat, when her jounin training kicked in and she grew suspicious. She put her spoon down.

Itachi's eyes narrowed a little, but not in annoyance. She saw his lips curve in the Uchiha smirk, before taking the bowl off her.

"You poisoned it?!"

"I like to test people's abilities. You have been trained well if you do not lose your instincts as an ANBU member in a situation such as this."

"What poison is it?"

"A slightly milder version of the one Sasori carried on his weapons." Sakura's breath froze in her throat. Through a weapon into the bloodstream, that poison was bad enough; in the digestive system, it would have caused untold agony, corroding her organs, for three days before finally killing her.

"What the hell? What if I'd drunk it?!" Itachi's smirk was replaced by his usual bland expression.

"You're the best medic in Konoha, and reputably in all the Shinobi Countries. I was interested to see what you would have done in that situation." Itachi stood up with the poisoned bowl and left the room. Sakura felt like every cell in her body was trembling.

If I'd been so distracted that I drunk it… 

Everyone she knew who had been in direct contact with Itachi before warned that he liked to play mind games, but this was a different level from anything she had been expecting. He could have jeopardised his own plan if she had fallen ill!

And suddenly, it hit her that this was a compliment.

Itachi had obviously expected her to not eat the soup, or have the abilities to heal herself if she had. Considering that this was Sasori's poison, combined with what Itachi had just said, Sakura realised that she had somehow earned Itachi's respect – something she had never received from Sasuke.

As Itachi returned and told her to take the bowl he'd been eating from, Sakura felt waves of confusion sweep through her.

What next? 

**1**

Sasuke was packed and ready to go at the gates of Konoha. His eyes were already lit with the Sharingan, and he was breathing heavily, mentally preparing himself for the trail. Behind him were others; Naruto and Kakashi had insisted on coming, for obvious reasons. Surprisingly, Sai was there as well. He had muttered that it was his fault that he and Sakura had let their guard down, and so he felt responsible for her capture. Sai still wasn't capable of much emotion, but he felt a slight, irritating pain in his chest – the loss of a friend. He privately hoped that he could find her before Sasuke, because Itachi had obviously meant to lure Sasuke away from Konoha – which did not bode well for Sakura's well-being if she was present at the final showdown. If he could get ahead of the others, he might be able to get her away before Sasuke reached Itachi.

Tsunade had come to see them off. Her eyes were lined from the lack of sleep the previous night, and they looked slightly puffy and red as though she'd shed a few tears. She was desperately worried for Sakura. Certainly Sakura was powerful, but nobody denied that Itachi was miles out of anyone's league at this point – save, possibly, Sasuke.

"Good luck," she started, her voice catching slightly, "please, please bring Sakura back safely." Naruto felt his heart lurch. Years ago, on this spot, he'd promised Sakura the same thing of Sasuke – his "promise of a lifetime." He'd failed at that.

He would not fail this time; he could not. It was a personal thing for Sasuke, but more so for Naruto. He looked at his team-mate and felt anger building within him. If Sasuke hadn't taken Sakura for granted, if he'd just given her the time of day, this wouldn't have happened…

Sasuke felt terrible.

His initial feeling, before being sedated, was sheer rage. Once again Itachi had walked casually into his life and torn it apart. But this time it was different – instead of destroying Sasuke's whole world, he took the part of it Sasuke hadn't even thought he would miss very much. His mind tortured him as he thought back to all the situations in which he'd avoided her because he'd been so certain that she would be an annoyance, an obstruction, still a fan-girl. She'd grown and he'd refused to see it. Sasuke was determined to get her back, while he still had time he needed to let her know that he didn't think she was worthless.

Kakashi looked over his two ex-students. Both were deadly silent, facing the same way, slightly crouched and ready to move. United truly, for the first time, in desperation. Both with eyes flaring red. Kakashi couldn't help but resent Sasuke a little. While Itachi alone was to be blamed for taking Sakura, Kakashi felt that Sasuke could have prevented it.

"Listen," he said. The three boys turned towards him. "This is not a revenge mission. We are to get Sakura out of there, safely and in one piece. We are to avoid Itachi at all costs until this mission is complete, understood?" Sasuke gritted his teeth and glared, opening his mouth to say something, when Kakashi held up his hand. "However, once we have Sakura, I will not object to anybody going back to pursue their own agenda. We have unlimited time for this mission. Use it wisely." His eyes met Sasuke's.

Sasuke's lips lifted in a completely dead smile. Kakashi lifted his arm.

"Go."

There were four flashes of colour as the shinobi leapt into the trees.

And then silence.

**1**

**Sorry I took so long to update – the girls I'm au pairing for have been taking up quite a bit of time recently, and I ran out of Red Bull – but I'm ok now, the story is still going!**

**Reviews please, remember they make me write faster!**

**Genjutsu-Dragon**


	4. Chapter 4

**Once again, cheers for the reviews. In return, here is the 4****th**** chapter!**

**I own nowt but the plot and my three brain cells.**

**Genjutsu-Dragon.**

**1**

Sakura sat in her room, frowning at the wall. Something did not quite add up in her mind. She did not believe that Sasuke had enough interest in her to save her from Itachi – not that she was going to advertise that because it would probably mean her death if Itachi realised that she wasn't necessary.

It wasn't just that. If Sasuke did leave Konoha looking for her, he would not have been allowed to go alone. Naruto and Kakashi would certainly be in a unit with him, and possibly one other nin.

Yet Itachi had spoken as if expecting only Sasuke to appear. Itachi did not seem the type to make basic mistakes like this – he'd been in Konoha's ANBU, he knew how the team set-ups worked. There was an added element he had not bothered to tell her about, and Sakura was nervous – it probably involved her team getting hurt.

There were other things to consider. Why would Itachi just let Sasuke kill him if he showed remorse at her death – presuming he showed up at all? And why not just kill her?

The plans made no sense to Sakura, but she supposed that was the way Itachi operated. Nobody ever knew his true intentions. She remember Naruto telling her about one time, the first time Itachi and Naruto ran into each other alone, and he had as good as captured the Jinchuuriki – but only wanted to 'talk'. He had deviated from the Akatsuki's agenda because it clashed with his own. He was powerful enough to do so and to get away with it.

Sakura sighed. Her only hope right now, the only conceivable way out of this situation without being harmed, was to find a way to outwit Itachi and escape. A straight confrontation was unthinkable. Briefly her thoughts moved to a time when she was fourteen, and Tsunade had spoken to her frankly about a particular type of mission almost every kunoichi had to go through. Seduction was treated as a fine art in the ninja world, seeing as most targets couldn't be caught off guard with alcohol. Sakura abandoned that line of thought before it could become any more detailed. There was no way in hell she would take that option. If Itachi didn't kill her on the spot for attempting something so crude, Sasuke would later.

"Haruno-san," Itachi said, making her jump. His ability to appear from thin air was greatly irritating to Sakura, because if he kept his chakra under control, he could walk behind her down the hall and she wasn't any the wiser until she turned around, and found herself looking into those deadly red eyes again. She was pretty sure he wasn't doing it out of a twisted pleasure, though. Itachi wasn't the type to do that.

"Follow me." Itachi turned and started to walk out the door.

Sakura was curious. She was unsure how long she had been here because of the lack of natural light, but a few days had passed and she still had little idea as to what ends Itachi was working. Maybe he would elaborate a little more.

To her surprise, he led her into a courtyard. Sakura filed this piece of information away for later – if she could remove the tags and manage to sneak here, she could bolt through the roof. Right now, with her chakra levels as they were and Itachi watching her, it was not a possibility.

Itachi stood completely still. Sakura stared at him.

Suddenly she was aware of a flash of light and dived to one side as a kunai, moving too fast for her eyes to see properly, shot past her. Itachi appeared not to have moved.

"What the hell…?!" Sakura stood up and actually walked a few paces towards him, fists clenched, before recovering her senses and dropping back again. This time, she moved her feet apart and lowered her centre of gravity, one fist held tightly at her side, the other open in front of her, preparing for a palm heel strike or block.

Thinking again, she backed up against the wall. She did not want to give Itachi the opportunity to appear behind her.

Itachi nodded.

_She closed off one method of approach_, he thought. _And she's managing to hide her fear well._

A tiny part of Sakura was utterly terrified. The reason she was able to keep so still and not freak was that she was, for the most part, furious. She knew Itachi needed her for his plan, so right now he was playing with her. Again.

Just as he'd played with Sasuke's mind.

She wanted nothing more right now than to have her hands wrapped around Itachi's neck, screaming at him not to underestimate her.

She felt her heart beating fast, heard it echoing in her ears. Her rage was swelling up and she felt the presence of her Inner hollering for blood. Sakura had successfully repressed her Inner before now because listening to it would cause her to do something stupid.

She shut her eyes and Itachi frowned.

What kind of shinobi shut their eyes in a threatening situation?

_Flash_

Itachi never let his eyes widen with shock, but he could not deny a flicker of surprise when Sakura's minimal chakra turned out to be enough to move her to the other side of the courtyard almost as fast as he could move. She had excellent control, he acknowledged.

Unfortunately, Sakura had had a part of her mind scrambled by Itachi's genjutsus – the part telling her the exact levels of chakra available to her. She had overestimated it and now was almost at zero. Sweat poured down her face and Itachi had still barely moved.

_Why in hell did I do that? Now I'm worse off than before!_

"Tsukoyomi," Itachi said, and then a fear of death worse than any she had ever felt swept over Sakura, bringing her to her knees. She was locked in a red-and-black world, Itachi having supreme power. And now, he could hurt her as much as she wanted without killing her.

Kakashi had once described to her his experience of Itachi's ultimate mind torture. She tried to mentally steel herself for being stabbed thousands of times, but this was not what Itachi had in mind.

"Naruto!"

The Kyuubi container was strapped to a cross of wood, being slashed by more Itachi's than she could count. She made to run forwards and felt great vines, dripping with blood, wrapping around her limbs. She was utterly helpless as Itachi mercilessly killed Naruto over and over again.

"Naruto…"

"**GET OUT OF MY MIND!"**

_Shit!_

Itachi looked up to see something huge towering over him. He used his control over Sakura's mind to increase his size, and for a moment Sakura was confronted with something surreal.

The gigantic red-and-black Itachi was eye to eye with the black-and-white Inner Sakura.

**1**

Itachi was curious. The only occasion in which he'd come across something similar to this was when he had used a similar mind-control jutsu on a Bijuu container. A different presence within the mind. He eyed the apparition that was glaring at him. This would appear to be a second personality, making Sakura schizophrenic. But there was something about the rage that came off it…this thing was created by suppressed thoughts and feelings, and was controlled constantly by Sakura. It looked only too happy to be in control for once. Itachi didn't move as Inner Sakura's fist went for his throat. This was his world, her fist would pass straight through him.

And then he felt the pressure of fingers on his throat.

"**We're on the same plane of existence, you bastard!" **Inner Sakura screamed. **"How dare you underestimate me like that!" **

Itachi ended his jutsu quickly. The regular Sakura had passed out and left Inner Sakura completely in control of her mind – he needed to return to his real body quickly.

He stared down at the immobile form of Sakura on the ground. There was something about her Inner that separated it from normal second personalities. He would have to do some research.

This test was originally going to be about finding Sakura's mental limits, first by terrifying, then traumatising her. He thought of Naruto – the second presence within him meant that he had a second set of chakra reserves to draw on once his had been used up. In a similar manner, Sakura's inner meant that she had a second mind available when the first one was broken down. This would probably come in useful if she was ever being tortured for information.

He looked at the sky, filling with rain clouds, and frowned again. He'd originally intended just to leave her here until she recovered consciousness, but he couldn't risk her falling ill. He lifted her over one shoulder and took her back inside.

**1**

"The trail is getting stronger," Sasuke informed the others. It was his first sentence since they had struck camp this morning, and the light was now dwindling fast. Kakashi eyed the clouds apprehensively. They could conceivably destroy the trail.

Sasuke landed in a clearing and the others followed suit. "We should stop here for the night." Kakashi's eye widened and Sai's lips thinned. Naruto growled.

"What? We should be moving as fast as we could! The trail could go cold at any minute!"

"It will not go cold," Sasuke said coldly. "And it will not benefit us to be exhausted when we face Itachi. We need as much chakra as possible just to get out of there." Kakashi frowned as Sasuke's confidence that the trail could not disappear. But nodded assent to the second point.

"We need all the chakra possible to get in and out with Sakura in one piece," he said. "My plan is for one of us to distract Itachi, while the others infiltrate the hideout. We must still be aware of clones, however."

All eyes flickered over to Sasuke. Not needing to ask for a volunteer, Kakashi nodded at him.

"I will not ask what your distraction techniques will consist of," he said. "But try to get out of there alive."

"Hn."

Naruto silently went about setting up camp. Kakashi observed the boy cautiously. If Itachi had, for any reason, hurt Sakura, the Kyuubi might absorb him again. And a full-flaring Bijuu was not what they needed on this mission. It was a matter of stealth and they were up against the master.

There was more than that. Kakashi did not know if Naruto still had a crush on Sakura – if he did, then he was a lot less demonstrative about it than he used to be – but he and Sakura certainly had a stronger bond than ever because of their hunt for Sasuke.

On that note, he looked over at Sai, lighting the fire. Kakashi hadn't noticed his silence because it was normal for the ex-ROOT member, but now he came to think of it Sai hadn't said _anything_ since admitting his guilt over Sakura's capture. He should have at least insulted somebody once.

He didn't know the extent of the relationship between Sakura and Sai, although he seriously doubted it went beyond friendship. But they were very close of late, in a joking, insulting kind of way. At this moment Kakashi knew that Sai was feeling a few drops of emotion, and very painful ones at that. It was somewhat likely that although Sasuke had been the obvious choice to distract Itachi, the other two nins wanted to give him a savage beating as well. Despite the act not being conducted to spite them, it was just as personal for Naruto and Sai as it was for Sasuke.

All Kakashi wanted – so desperately – was to get Sakura out of there alive. If the others lost their heads, Sakura could well lose hers.

**1**

**Yeah, I'm having Itachi test Sakura's limits more out of a bored curiosity than anything else. I put in Inner Sakura because in the anime during the Chuunin exams, when regular Sakura's mind is oppressed by the Mind Transfer Jutsu, Inner Sakura takes over. Hope that makes sense and you aren't going to throw stuff at me :S**

**And sorry for updating later than usual. I got that ole writer's block.**

**Review please!**

**Genjutsu Dragon.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Phew, Chapter 4 was a tough little bastard to write. I was scared about putting Inner in there – I don't like her overmuch – but it's been well received so thank you! Also, keeping Itachi in character is getting more tricky. Anyway, last chapter, I gave you the first proper ItaSaku moment of this fic. More detail in this one!**

**Note: The guys are going to be travelling for several days – the focus for the next couple of chapters or so will be on Itachi and Sakura, with occasional glances at the pursuing group to see what affect the tension is having. Otherwise the writing would get kinda same-y.**

**Oops, and I forgot – I own none of these characters. They belong to the unfairly talented Kishimoto-san. And the D.I.D description is, in part, lifted from Wikipedia – so for argument's sake, I didn't write that either.**

**Genjutsu Dragon.**

**1**

Sakura woke up with a start. Her mind was still flooded with images from her dream – Naruto being murdered by Itachi before Sakura could unsheathe the katana that had suddenly appeared across her back. She had lunged forward to impale Itachi, but another hand had grabbed hers and she'd seen her Inner take the revenge she wanted for herself.

Sakura's mind was reeling with what she had seen in the Tsukoyomi world. Her own mind had succumbed to Itachi's torture but she'd remained aware of everything that was happening. Her second mind had managed to surprise Itachi enough to make him withdraw.

While she didn't deny this was useful at the time, it made her nervous. She'd already worked out that for some reason known only to himself, Itachi was testing her. He was almost certainly going to test this newfound power of hers. And now he was aware of it, Sakura was certain that her Inner would not overpower him again.

Slowly, she walked along to the main room to find Itachi squinting at an unfurled scroll, several others lined up neatly in front of him. She made to turn around when Itachi lifted a hand and beckoned to her, without looking away from his reading. He put the scroll on the table and motioned for her to start reading.

_Dissociative Identity Disorder_, she read. _A mental condition which tends to occur in shinobi who take several long-term (5 years or more) undercover missions, or anybody who suppresses a large number of their true thoughts and speaks against them, usually to fit in with a peer group/collective group opinion. It involves the individual being diagnosed with two or more distinct identities/personalities, each responding to their situation/environment differently. Dissociation means, basically, 'two or more mental processes that are not associated or integrated'. …_

Sakura looked at Itachi, who was still looking down.

"I would say that almost sums it up, Haruno-san," Itachi said quietly. "Except yours is active only when your real mind is completely repressed."

Sakura couldn't help but agree.

"So…you haven't come across this before?"

"No." Sakura pursed her lips and frowned. Itachi had made a small sound at the end of the word, as though about to say something else, but had fallen silent again.

"But…?"

"There has been a similar experience with a Bijuu carrier. However, the entity in there was sealed, so it could not harm me. Yours is not just a mental split in your own mind, it is a second mind. So it gives you hitherto unknown power over anybody who enters your mind."

Sakura felt a moment of confusion as her eyes met Itachi's. She turned away quickly. It stood to reason that Itachi would be interested in anything that could defeat his ultimate torture weapon, but he was volunteering an unusual amount of information.

"Haruno-san," Itachi said. Sakura turned and kept her eyes fixed on a point just over his left shoulder.

"Hai?"

"I would like to examine this second mind. I would not attempt to harm you this time, I just want to observe it and if possible try to find out something new about it. I want to test a theory."

Of course, Sakura mused, it wouldn't be out of idle curiosity. He has to have a _hypothesis_. One thing she knew was that this would involve Tsukoyomi again. In a way she trusted him not to harm her as he had said; but she did not want him in her head again. She felt tainted with stained chakra when he withdrew.

She shook her head.

"Gomensai, but I can't allow that," she said. "It would appear to be a valuable weapon for me against genjutsu users." She figured a polite refusal would help. She knew Itachi would enter her mind again whether she allowed it or not, but he'd done her the courtesy of asking. And they both knew this.

"_Tsukoyomi."_

As they entered the hellish realm once again, Sakura thought that she would be so happy never to see the Sharingan ever again. She knew that whenever she might look into Sasuke's eyes – not that would happen, he had been avoiding eye contact with her whenever possible in the weeks before she was captured – she would now see his brother's features imprinted over him, as she had seen Sasuke's over Itachi's. She would always be reminded of Naruto dying as she looked at Sasuke.

Itachi had to have planned this. Even if Sasuke survived, even if she was saved, she could never look at the youngest Uchiha again without thinking of a merciless killer a few years older.

Such a bastard, she thought, clenching her fists, and the thought echoed around the pair in the Tsukoyomi world. It did the trick. While Sakura was aware of what was going on, her first mind had no control of the situation. Her Inner came out.

"**Now what, teme?"**

Sakura couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw Itachi smirk. It had to have been a long time since anybody had dared call him that so casually.

Inner Sakura was looking down at Itachi, who suddenly held handfuls of chain in his hands. Moving swiftly off the pillars he created in Sakura's mind for the purpose, he raced around her Inner, binding her down. She ranted and swore at him as he bound down all her limbs.

"You said we're on the same plane of existence, so I should be able to tie you," Itachi said. He didn't believe what he was saying; he was waiting for Inner Sakura to disprove it.

Sure enough, the chains around her melted.

"**We're on the same plane of existence, but this is my dimension to shape as I please. Your Tsukoyomi occupies this place, which, in most people's awareness, would be empty – in Sakura's head, it is my domain. Your Tsukoyomi therefore cannot control Sakura completely. Now get the FUCK OUT MY HEAD!"**

Itachi complied and withdrew. Sakura's knees buckled beneath her. Even without being tortured, it was a deeply unpleasant experience having somebody with chakra as malevolent as Itachi's in her head. Itachi looked down at her for a couple of seconds and red flared across Sakura's face in anger and embarrassment. She placed a hand on the floor in preparation to get up and was suddenly confronted with something completely unexpected.

Itachi was holding out a hand to her in what appeared to be a gesture of help.

Sakura stared at it and Itachi grunted. Gingerly, Sakura put her hand up and felt his fingers fold around it before he lifted her off the floor. In the brief second before he let go, Sakura noted with interest that his fingers were slender enough to feel delicate, and were also only lightly calloused in comparison to most shinobi she had dealt with at the hospital. She supposed this was because his main techniques involved genjutsu. If one were to take in Itachi at a glance, she knew they would not consider him overly dangerous, and the feel of his hand further that impression. It was those eyes that overwhelmed and terrified the enemy. Sakura removed her hand swiftly and left the room, heading for the courtyard.

**1**

Itachi looked at his hand in mild curiosity. It had been a reflex action for him to extend it to the medic as she collapsed on the floor. The human eye is drawn to movement, after all, so he imagined that responses such as his were built-in to the human body. To remove it once he realised it was out would have seemed a twitch or a blunder rather than an active decision on his part to Sakura. Keeping it out suggested he had considered helping her up the best course of action.

He sat at the table, opened a fresh scroll, and began to write down what he had learnt, his eyes straining in the feeble light afforded by the candles and starting the familiar thud of pain in the middle of his forehead.

He had briefly played with the idea of tricking Sakura into healing his eyes, but discarded it swiftly. For one, he didn't know if she had ever operated on Sharingan before, and he had no desire to be the test subject. It would also be a matter of seconds for her to completely blind him and although he would still have the speed to snap her neck before she could get away, it would make him a much easier target for his brother. However, it would not make Sakura's escape any easier.

Itachi had taken the time, before Sakura had woken up, to surround the perimeter of the building with exploding tag traps. He knew that it was inevitable that she would make at least one attempt at escape. If she managed to remove the tags without screeching in pain and make her way to the courtyard without him noticing, and leapt through the roof, she would have five seconds to look at the vast, rocky wilderness they were in before the tags nearest exploded with enough force to knock her back into the courtyard, concussing her on the way. This would force her to rely on him for medical treatment until she stabilised enough to take care of herself.

He had never considered Sakura weak, but he imagined she would share some of Naruto's more impulsive traits in this situation. Any opportunity at escape would be gleefully seized.

He winced and finished writing. By his calculations, a squad would definitely have been sent out by now and be three days into their journey. They were still at least two weeks travel away, and one week from the traps Itachi had set up to disable everyone and split the squad up, leaving only Sasuke in pursuit.

**1**

Sakura looked up at the sky from the courtyard and then closed her eyes. Carefully separating a small section of her chakra from the few drops left, she amplified her senses to see if she could pick up Itachi's chakra. He appeared to still in the main room.

She wriggled a thumbnail under the top of the tag on her left arm and gave an experimental tug.

_Oh god!_

Her mind went temporarily numb with pain and she just managed to stifle a gasp. Peeking under the small flap she saw yellow fluid oozing from the back of the tag and being absorbed by her skin. A weak poison, she assumed, designed to disable the pain threshold of the wearer of the tag, probably could only be deactivated by a jutsu. Removing the tags was going to cause agony.

She remembered just then that Itachi had said that after the tags had been removed, she needed a full day to build up her chakra. There was no way in hell she could get rid of them and restore normal chakra levels without Itachi noticing. This left her with one option, in her mind.

She grabbed one of the supporting beams of the courtyard roof and started to scramble up it. Even without chakra, her constant training still meant she was in excellent physical condition and so she had the upper body strength to cope. It was a strain though, and she hauled herself onto the lip of the curved roof, looking down into the courtyard, breathing heavily.

_Ok, run!_

Sakura crawled into an upright position and clambered to the top of the roof to examine her surroundings.

Miles and miles of stone, with no object to rest the eye until the horizon.

_A desert of rock?_

She hadn't realised that the reason it was so dark in the hideout was because the entire complex was underground. There were no windows because there was no way for natural light to come in.

She took a couple of steps and turned around. Another barren wilderness of rock, but in that direction she could see something that looked like a building, miles away. Sakura took one step forward and sudden her ears shut down in self-defence as a deafening noise shook the ground around her. She was thrown back down into the courtyard as the rock disintegrated into hundreds of flying chips and she fell hard against one of the stone pillars before blacking out completely.

**1**

-BOOM-

Itachi stood up and headed for the courtyard, unperturbed by the noise. He had figured out all the various angles Sakura's body could be thrown at depending on where she stood, and none of them could seriously hurt her. The dust was just settling as he entered the open space and looked down at the pink-haired medic, now criss-crossed with hundreds of tiny cuts from the debris.

He was interested to note that she had not removed the chakra tags completely. She'd realised he would have noticed their absence and decided the best way out was to climb out. There was, in reality, no escape route at all. While Sakura recovered, Itachi would replace all the exploding tags.

He carefully lifted Sakura in his arms, bridal-style, to avoid doing any more damage to her head. There was a shallow cut, bleeding profusely as scalp wounds are wont to do, on her forehead, and running down her cheek was a wound that reminded him of Hatake Kakashi's scar.

He took her back to her room and cleaned the injuries thoroughly, wanting to avoid blood poisoning. He lifted an eyelid and held up a candle to check pupil reactions. It worked normally. No concussion. She had a tougher head than he had predicted.

Part of her hair tickled his hand as he worked and he flicked it away in irritation. He'd heard that this kunoichi had once grown her hair long and tended to it more than her training, hoping to impress Sasuke. Itachi smirked. The only thing that impressed Sasuke was power. If she'd trained more, she might have stood a hope in hell back then of getting him to stay in Konoha. Now, of course, it was short and choppy, much more practical than bright pink waist-length hair for ninja missions. It was still softer than he would expect a kunoichi's hair to be.

He folded a blanket over her and left the room. She should be fine on her own until morning.

**1**

**Please don't kill me for cheese. I tried to keep him in character by thinking about practicality and medical necessities – does it come across ok, or does it look like a desparate stab at finally getting some ItaSaku in without being stupid? (That's what it is, btw.) Thanks for reviews, keep em coming!**

**Genjutsu Dragon.**


	6. Chapter 6

First of all, I'd like to apologise to all my regular readers (who have probably stopped watching this story for updates a long time ago). There've been a lot of changes going on…I'm now living in Holland, and have been without internet access for a month, pretty much. Basically I've only just managed to get it fixed. Also I have much less free time now as I am a sort of au pair/cleaner, so busy loads.

Excuses aside, on with Itachi's mind-fucks!

1

_Oh Kuso, that HURTS…_

Sakura opened her eyes and was in instant agony. Her brain seemed to be trying to squeeze itself out of a small crack in the front of her skull, and various parts of her body were on fire with pain. She shifted experimentally and twitched violently in reflex as her body informed her that two of her ribs were fractured.

_Shit. How am I going to heal myself?_

She forced herself to think back. She could remember the house in the distance, taking one step forward and then the earth simply pushing hard against her and sending her flying back into the courtyard. _Explosive tags. Well done for scanning the area before running for safety, moron._

Hissing through her teeth, Sakura propped herself against the wall and assessed as much damage as she could with her fingers. There was a deep cut under her left eye that would probably scar, and her body was pitted with small cuts from the debris. She noted that these had all been cleaned already.

_Itachi's hands have been all over you…_

Sakura shook the thought away. She already felt bad enough about allowing desperation for escape to overtake her caution, and from the injuries, without thinking of Itachi touching her. It made her feel sick.

Ignoring her inner medic screaming in her head, Sakura attempted to stand up, clinging to the walls. Sweat began to pour down her as she fought her physical limits. She managed to get to the doorway before collapsing.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid…_

Sakura abandoned dignity and sucked in air.

"UCHIHA!"

She was not going to address him by his first time.

Itachi stepped from the shadows further down the hall. Just one look at his eyes told Sakura that he had seen her struggling, heard her scream his name and was now smirking. Sakura very nearly succumbed to her rage and her desire to scream 'bastard' at him very loudly, but just managed to suppress it.

He walked over and picked her up in his arms, moving her back to the bed.

_This is so humiliating…and I don't want him touching me like this!_

Itachi dropped her unceremoniously down and then leaned over her, that smirk still in his eyes. Sakura tried to burrow into the mattress to get away as he brought his face close to hers, resting his hands on her shoulders…

Then she felt the flow of chakra. He was pushing some of his chakra into her!

It felt vile. It seemed tainted, cloying, a poison in her system. He stood up, taking his hands away, and his face returned to its usual deadpan expression.

"I have given you enough chakra to heal your ribs, Haruno," he said in a monotone. "Don't try to use it for anything else, or I will incapacitate you and this time you will not be healed. There is food ready for you in the main room." He turned and left.

Sakura was almost gagging, converting the chakra to healing chakra. It was oozing through her system instead of rushing around it, and everything seemed to be moving slowly – once she had finished healing herself and stood up, the room swayed and it took her a while to regain her balance.

_What has he done to me…?_

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, as Sakura staggered into the walls and the shadows seemed to make it even longer. She forced all her attention on getting to the main room, making herself run towards the end as she felt like she would fall over. As a result, she tripped over her own feet going in, and fell sprawling. Her muscles were turning to mush and she didn't have the strength to stand again.

_What the hell is this?!_

She shut her eyes and saw the imprint of the Sharingan against the blackness of her lids. They flew open again as she felt Itachi lift her and set her down on the cushions at the edge of the table. He propped her up like a doll, arms rested for support on the tabletop, before pulling a plate of food toward them. One arm around her shoulders, Itachi dipped his chopsticks into the bowl and pulled out a few strands of noodles before holding them up to her mouth.

_NO!_

Sakura put the little strength she had into turning her head away. Itachi was toying with her, making her into some sort of game for himself to pass the time until Sasuke got here. What exactly he hoped to achieve with this, Sakura had no idea, but she was going to fight it from this point. She knew he was deliberately making her feel helpless and uncomfortable, and she wasn't going to stand for it. Sakura didn't care if he killed her, she was going to go out fighting.

But then Itachi muttered. "Open your mouth." And Sakura felt her body betray her as her head turned forwards and she accepted the food. Itachi's face did not change one jot from his usual expression, but he was amused, she could tell. What he had done to her exactly was anyone's guess, but it was just another method of torture. Sakura was locked in her mind, completely unable to access the rest of her body without Itachi's orders to guide her.

Itachi gave her permission to finish the rest of her food herself, but then got her to sit still while he left. She could not move, talk – anything at all. He was gone for five hours and Sakura had nearly gone mad with boredom when he returned. She'd been constantly testing to see if she could move any part of her body herself, and had just achieved some reaction in her little finger when he came back.

"You may move again."

Sakura stood up and flew across the room at him, knowing it was futile but wishing so hard for the slightest chance, a single opportunity to hurt him. She was caught more off guard when he did not dodge and she smashed into him, both of them crashing into the wall.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, YOU BASTARD?!"

Itachi sat up and brushed his hair out of his face.

"When I introduced my chakra to your system, it was so that I could use a jutsu that essentially forced you to do whatever I commanded. It takes a little while to activate, which was why you were able to get here on your own even though your body was shutting down all the time. I haven't used it on anyone else before; I wanted to test its effectiveness."

1

Itachi was lying about the purpose of his use of the jutsu on Sakura. He had noticed how uncomfortable she was around him, how her tension increased as he got closer to her. He had used the jutsu to make her physically repulsed by his ability to touch her whenever he wanted. Even as Sakura railed at him, his mind was elsewhere, thinking about how he could twist this to his full advantage. What would drive her absolutely crazy, make her so disgusted with herself that she could not look her friends in the eye – assuming they all survived this?

Itachi already knew. However, his plan involved a intricate genjutsu that he had not yet perfected. Time was running out and he wanted Sasuke's heart to be shattered before Itachi killed him.

He returned to his quarters, leaving Sakura slumped on the floor, and folded his hands into a seal. By his calculations, the pursuing team should be within range now. It was time to start splitting them up.

1

Sasuke's mood was not improved by the trail becoming stronger. Instead it made him more intent, more focused on his goal. He pushed himself harder and harder, keeping exact pace with Naruto, both boys straining to reach Sakura as fast as they could. It was only Kakashi's intervention that had stopped them rushing headlong into a number of the traps that Itachi had set up.

Kakashi was worrying about the recklessness of the boys. Their desperation was blinding them, and even Sai had made a stumble, moving faster than he normally would. Kakashi predicted trouble between him and Sasuke later on. Sai wanted to comfort Sakura and apologise for not being able to help her, whereas Sasuke wanted revenge for Itachi interfering in his life again. However, Sai also wanted to fight Itachi for catching him off guard. He did not like anybody disrespecting Sakura, and feelings had been strained between the boys for months because of that.

Kakashi felt a rush of chakra behind him and turned his head.

_What the hell?!_

Itachi was behind them, coming up fast.

_How did he get around us?_

"Team Kakashi! Find a firm footing and hold it!" Kakashi stopped on a branch and was nearly knocked forwards by the wave of murderous intent coming off Sasuke. Itachi held up a hand and a wave of shruikens flew towards him.

"Team! Split!"

Kakashi dived downwards, pushing up the material from his left eye. He had just caught sight of the Shadow Shruiken move; if he had simply ducked the other shruikens would have thudded into him. Itachi vanished and Kakashi's Sharingan barely managed to see him moving straight towards Naruto.

"Naruto! Down!"

Naruto flung himself backwards, missing the kunai that Itachi had thrown straight at his chest. Kakashi caught more movement in the corner of his eye and swore. _Shadow clones_. Sai's eyes widened. He made an odd, strangled gasp of pain, and then a plume of blood billowed from his stomach and he began to fall. Kakashi leapt and caught him just before he hit the ground.

"Sai! Can you move?" Beads of sweat were coursing down Sai's pale face. He pressed a hand into the cut on his stomach and assessed the damage.

"Yes, but I should not. I need to stay down now – sorry, Taichou." Kakashi nodded grimly and took to the trees again. Naruto had performed a mass Kage Bunshin and got all of them to light a Rasengan-Shruiken. Itachi was so far ahead of him in speed and dodging ability that Naruto's only hope of staying alive was to keep up a constant level of carnage. Itachi clones and Naruto clones were vanishing at an incredible rate. It was only then that Kakashi's mind properly registered something.

_Where the hell is Sasuke?!_

1

Sasuke had spotted the first Itachi heading off into the forest and followed, leaving his team-mates behind. He'd swiftly realised that the fight was meant to be a diversion, and it was highly probable that the shinobi he was following was not the real Itachi. Nonetheless, if it lead him to Sakura…

Itachi stopped suddenly once they were about ten miles from the fight. Sasuke, keeping a good distance away, halted himself and hung back warily. While watching the Itachi facing him, he kept his senses alert for any approaching projectiles or shadow clones.

"So now you care for her, little brother?"

Itachi's voice echoed through the trees, sounding all around Sasuke. He forced himself to keep looking forward. He did not reply.

"You are still a child, Sasuke," Itachi continued. "It is as though I took a toy you never played with and you are throwing a tantrum on principle."

"Sakura is not a toy," Sasuke growled. The words stung him. It was exactly as how he had treated her. A forgotten toy, a neglected friend. He did care for her but it was aloof and he never took the time to demonstrate it in case it encouraged her to start hoping that he might see her romantically again.

"She is mine now."

Sasuke barely suppressed his rage.

"She is not yours to own."

"I control her. She does as I will. It is me she will kneel for now, me she will follow wherever I go. You've lost her."

"What have you done to her?" The Itachi on the branch smirked. The insinuation in that one gesture was enough to make Sasuke fly off the handle. He launched himself and to his shock, Itachi did not dodge. Both men crashed through several trees before hitting the ground. Sasuke grabbed the front of Itachi's cloak and pulled his fist back.

"I've left a trail for you. Come and claim her if you can…foolish little brother." Itachi's features melted and suddenly Sasuke was pinning a dead shinobi he did not recognise. He stood up sharply and looked around, eyes searching for a clue.

1

Finally, the first chapter in well over a month (really sorry guys!) Hope this lives up to standard…I think Itachi is getting creepier now. Review please!

-Genjutsu-Dragon-


	7. Chapter 7

**Lor, I am actually getting worse. My life's been something of a mess this year, but things have settled to a happy medium recently which means I can continue (and hopefully finish) this piece. Happy Holidays y'all.**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**

**­1**

Itachi walked slowly along the hallway, planning. The illusionary jutsu he war working on had been completed and perfected – the second stage of his plan could now truly begin. First, however, he needed to choose a good time to strike. Sakura would be more wary of him than ever now that she had to obey his every command. Anything out of the ordinary routine would put her guard up.

She was still sitting in the main room where he had left her when he disappeared to split up the pursuing party, stretching out her body. Being immobilised for such a long time had caused her limbs to lock and in addition, for extra discomfort, Itachi had left her sitting cross-legged and hunched slightly forward. Both feet were in agony as the feeling returned and her back ached. Carefully she rolled her shoulders and leaned back, hands on her hips, wincing as the vertebrae cracked against each other moving back into place.

"My foolish little brother is on his way," he said. Sakura did not jump or twitch in surprise this time. In fact, she appeared to be ignoring him. Itachi persevered. "He should be here soon. I have disposed of the other members of the team he was with already – I believe it was the remainder of Team Kakashi."

**1**

Sakura shut her eyes and forced her mind elsewhere. Itachi's voice was always soft and dangerous – steel beneath velvet, she always imagined. It caused her terror but it could creep into one's ear and was very difficult to pay no attention to. Chances were strong that he was telling the truth. If so, Naruto, Sai, and Kakashi were out of the running, but Sasuke remained. It would not do to lose her head before he arrived. She could at least steal a chance to tell him that she was affectively Itachi's slave.

As she had more ability in chakra control than most, she could search through for the root of the poisonous chakra that held her captive. Since Itachi had left her slumped on the floor after feeding her the previous day, Sakura had been searching through her system. It was difficult. Chakra could permeate cells and so she was searching through her body. It was logical to search the muscles first, or the section of her brain that controlled the motor skills. If those were under Itachi's command then the rest of her would not matter. Her mind was no slave to him. However, searching through the cells was only the beginning. Each time she found a piece of Itachi's chakra in a cell, she had to expel it. That took a lot of physical effort as the only way to get rid of the chakra was to use it – by sweating it out, as she did not have enough to produce jutsus. She had been running around the room at high speed, but upon hearing Itachi's door open she had swiftly sat down and acted as though she had not moved.

**1**

Itachi's eyes narrowed. Sakura's breathing was laboured and she was making a concentrated effort not to look at him. He walked around her and noted that some of the pink hairs at the nape of her neck were stuck to it with sweat.

"Look at me."

He did not exercise the chakra jutsu and therefore grew more suspicious when she turned, with an apparent physical effort against it, towards him. She was feigning. Therefore she had been purging herself of his chakra.

That was impressive, but Itachi felt irritation that she believed he would be taken in by the ploy. He was too observant – how did she think she could trick him?

He then realised something. He could cause her untold agony just by moving the chakra tags, but he could not use Tsukoyomi on her because of the second 'person' in her mind and he presented no lethal threat because he needed her for his plan. Sakura had realised this and therefore was fighting against him as best she could. He couldn't kill her. Something very like frustration surfaced in Itachi's mind. He was tempted to restore her chakra, beat her until she realised there was no hope, and then kill her.

He took a deep breath. Instead of that, he would carry out the plan a little earlier than scheduled. He made an 'up' motion with his fingers. Sakura stood and the two shinobi walked along the corridor to her room.

"Sasuke will arrive within the next couple of hours. I will bring you out of the room shortly before then, and we will wait for him in the courtyard. I am going to insert more of my chakra. This time you will not have an opportunity to get rid of it." Sakura's eyelid flickered, but other than that she gave no response she had actually heard.

**1**

The time crawled by slowly. Sakura thought it must have been days since Itachi had locked her back into her room. For a long time she had been silent, listening to her own body. Her breathing was easy enough to hear, and the natural gurgles a system produces were also audible. After a while, however, she thought she heard heavy footsteps in the hall, and she twitched. The thumping sped up, and after a while she realised it was her own heart.

She could not get rid of any more chakra. She was exhausted. And she was painfully aware that it was likely that very soon, she would be murdered in front of her old team-mate.

_Sasuke, if there was ever a drop of affection in your heart for me, show it to him!_

It was the only hope she could cling to. Even then, Itachi might not be true to his word. Nobody knew what was really happening in his head. He could use her to wring the tiniest emotion from Sasuke, and then kill her anyway. Or worse for Sakura…kill Sasuke, and then all she would see before she died were the merciless red depths of the Sharingan. Itachi might smile, then, as the last of his clan lay at his feet and helpless in his hands was a now unneeded tool.

Sakura felt panic choking her. She was losing control of her emotions. The thought that her consciousness, the soul looking out through her eyes, was soon to be extinguished made her feel physically sick. Would be it be quick? Was there a better place waiting for shinobi such as herself? Or was there just a cold, black emptiness until the end of time?

Goosebumps raised on her arms and her head began to spin. She sat down and put her head between her knees, blinking back the greenish-black blotches smearing her vision. A loud humming was sounding in her ears, and she didn't seem able to take deep enough breaths. Sitting, gasping, eyes wide with fear, Sakura had not felt so stricken since she and Sasuke had been paralysed by Orochimaru's killing intent in the Forest of Death.

Suddenly there was a silence, the sort of silence that seemed to create a vacuum of sound and warned every being sensitive to it of impending impact. Sakura flung herself to the middle of the room and braced herself.

There was a deafening blast, the walls shook and across the ceiling scurried a series of cracks like spider webs. Sakura's aural nerves shut down and she was briefly puzzled by the complete lack of sound that went with the 'explosion'. Then a strong sonic blast ripped through the room and Sakura screamed as the sound rippled through every part of her body, releasing agony in its wake. It lifted her off the floor and slammed her into a wall. The ceiling fell in and Sakura was buried beneath the rubble.

**1**

"Sakura? Sakura!"

Sakura blinked and looked up. The debris had been shifted a bit and above her was endless blue sky. She had been lifted clear of the mess. And holding her across his knees, looking serious but worried, was Sasuke.

As her eyes focused on him, Sasuke's expression cleared and to Sakura's shock, he smiled at her. There was weariness in that smile.

"Sasuke…what happened?"

"I had to use a chain explosion to get in quickly, or _he_ would have been able to face me on ground advantageous to him."

"So…he's…?" Sasuke lifted her upwards carefully – still resting on his lap – and pointed a little way away. There was a rough brown sack holding a round object. Fully one-half was soaked with blood.

Sakura went floppy with relief, and then felt a wave of nausea. Reading her expression correctly, Sasuke stood and had her kneel and vomit into one of the holes in the ground.

"The sonic wave will have affected your organs," Sasuke explained. He actually looked a little apologetic. "Nothing permanent, but you will feel bad for the next few hours." Sakura nodded, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Sasuke handed her a gourd of water and she swilled it around her mouth and spat, before drinking properly. Thirst quenched, she sat up on her own and looked at Sasuke.

"How did you defeat him?"

Sasuke looked down.

"Luck," he muttered. "Sheer, fool's luck. My explosion rendered him unconscious. He was coming around and was regaining some of his capabilities – I took advantage of a weak moment and struck off his head. I would have liked to face him in a fair battle. At least now my clan is avenged." Sasuke looked up again, straight into Sakura's eyes. "I'm free."

Sakura nodded, smiling at him. It was finally over. Sasuke could return and maybe now, without the thought of his clan burning him night and day, he would be more friendly. More relaxed. She met his gaze again and was surprised to see him frowning again.

"Sakura…did he…hurt you?" Sakura pulled a face.

"As much as expected, whenever I stepped over a line. I've been concussed, cut, nearly blown up, and mentally tortured. Thank Kami that someone like that is gone."

There was a swift moment, and Sakura felt shock. Sasuke had pulled her to him and was holding her close, arms and hands locked around her.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry you were target for him. It was my fault. I didn't respect you, I didn't look to you as I should have. For that reason he took you. Can you forgive me?"

Sakura heard her heartbeat again…and now his. His heart beat faster than hers, belying his carefully calm exterior.

"Yes," she whispered.

Sasuke pulled back a little and looked into her eyes. One of his hands cupped her cheek while the other absent-mindedly tucked a little hair behind her ear. He leaned closer and Sakura's eyes widened as his began to close – and then his lips were on hers.

For a moment Sakura did not respond. Utter shock kept her still. And then the sensation of Sasuke's mouth caressing hers hit her like a truck and she wrapped her arms around his neck and began to kiss back.

**1**

The moment Sakura responded, Itachi knew he had made a ghastly mistake. Inside the genjutsu version of his brother, Itachi felt sensations he had never known. He had to concentrate to keep the jutsu going. He was supposed to let it slip after a second to destroy her mind, but at that moment, all his plans, his thoughts of his brother, and killing intent washed away. It was sublime. It even overtook the euphoria he had felt after defeating every member of the Uchiha clan.

He pulled the pink-haired girl tighter to him and for the first time in his battle-ridden, shinobi life he let down his guard and allowed himself to feel paradise in a woman's arms.

**1**

**Finally! This was a difficult chapter to write. I needed Sasuke to be believable enough for Sakura to be taken in, but writing about Itachi losing his mind after kissing Sakura took ages. And you know there are going to be dire consequences when the genjutsu wears off…**

**R & R please!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thank you reviewers! Again I apologise for how long it took for the last chapter to be written – I write these chapter by chapter and modify as I go along or if a reviewer has a good idea I can use.**

**Here comes mental trauma…**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**

**1**

Sakura knew that something was strange. Even if he had just killed Itachi, Sasuke surely wouldn't become tactile this quickly. But it was what she had wanted for a long time, and it felt so good…she banished the raving Inner Sakura who was screaming warnings in her head to a distant corner of her brain.

It wasn't just that he was kissing her. Sakura had stopped desiring that a long time ago. It was that he had actually apologised for treating her badly, that he had shown respect for her feelings - that he actually seemed to care.

Her eyes were still closed and Sasuke's hands gripped her waist, before one hand slid up the back of her top and gently caressed the skin of her lower back. Shocked, she opened her eyes and stared directly into the Sharingan.

_Why has he activated those?_

Then her eyes moved down a little and she felt her heart freeze mid-beat in her chest.

Two dark lines scored diagonally down Sasuke's cheeks. They hadn't been there before.

_What?_

The sky around them was melting and Sasuke was still kissing her with increasing urgency. Sakura pulled away and pointed upwards with a gasp. A ceiling was forming over them.

"Sasuke…he's still alive!"

She turned back to him.

Itachi looked back at her.

**1**

There was a moment of silence in which Sakura could hear the heartbeats again. Itachi's was thumping fast. He looked at her with an expression she didn't recognise at first, and when she did, it terrified her. Lust. Her own heart seemed to have stopped working. Then a roaring began in her ears and she stood up and threw all caution to the wind.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" She skittered backwards into a corner, as far away from Itachi as she could possibly get. "What the fuck were you doing?!"

**1**

Itachi realised that his desire was evident in his eyes and fought to bring his expression under control. Even as Sakura stood shaking, fear and loathing emanating from her every pore, he wanted to kiss her again. And so much more.

Why hadn't his brother realised what a jewel was under his own nose?

His plan had succeeded. When Sasuke arrived, he could tell him that Sakura had kissed him (without going into details). Even if Sakura denied it, Sasuke's Sharingan was sufficiently developed to tell when a person was lying to him. Itachi tried to focus his mind on that. Sasuke would be mentally destroyed.

But now…

Wouldn't it be so much better if Sakura kissed him, Itachi, in his own form, of her own free will? Sasuke might be hurt by the fact that she had even been within five yards of Itachi without attempting to maim him, but for her-

Itachi pushed those thoughts aside. Sakura was still poised like a cobra in the corner, now at the point where she didn't care what he did to her; she just wanted to escape. It would take a lot of work and worse; he could not change his own personality to accommodate this change in plans. She had to be attracted to him as he was, murderous persona and all. He stood up.

Sakura would not succumb to his usual bored or malicious demeanour. So first, he had to make her physically obsessed with him. New ideas were appearing and Itachi smirked to himself. In the corner, Sakura saw that smirk and winced. Something bad was about to happen.

He wanted to own her mind and body now. How much more painful for Sasuke, as he raised his sword to deliver the killing blow, to have Sakura fling herself between him and his target. Or for Itachi to stand over Sasuke's dying form, his arm wrapped around Sakura's waist. His thoughts were growing more obsessive and possessive – Sakura was turning into a more perfect device for his plans than ever, and now he intended to have benefits for himself.

**1**

Sakura slid down the wall. While she had been in the corner, she had felt pinned by his gaze. She was paralysed with fear and the desire in Itachi's eyes made it worse. She had no answers as to why he had done it and now she did not understand what was going on. Sasuke was now evidently not coming today, so Itachi had lied about that to make her more aware of her impending doom, and to lull her into a false sense of security once she saw Sasuke. Had he intended to kiss her? How far had he planned to take it? Sasuke could be driven insane by the very thought of Itachi touching her in that way, even if she hadn't realised it was him.

She ran out to the courtyard and turned her face to the sky.

She didn't want to see Sasuke now. He would just remind her of Itachi – presumably as Itachi had intended. Now, more than any time in her life, she wanted to see Naruto.

**1**

Reluctantly, Kakashi let Naruto scout ahead for Sasuke while he repaired the damage to Sai's stomach. He was no medic, but a long time ago Sakura had given him some herbs and poultices to enable swifter healing.

Naruto was bounding through the trees, following Sasuke's trail, when he felt something to the south-west. A slight shuddering in the trees. Most shinobi would not have been sensitive to it, but the marks on his cheeks were good for something other than decoration. When he concentrated – rarely – he could pick up and track vibrations that only other Jinchuuriki could sense. Something told him that the shuddering was important and he altered his course accordingly, leaving Sasuke's.

Except he didn't. He kept some chakra in his nose as Kiba had taught him, to heighten his smelling abilities, and every now and then Sasuke's path would slice across his own. If Sasuke was following Itachi's trail, then they seemed to be headed in the same direction as he was, but with Itachi attempting to tire Sasuke out a bit before reaching their destination. Hopefully he could overtake Sasuke before then and they could always use a little Bijuu power in this situation.

_If that teme has done anything to Sakura..._

The thought that Sakura was still in Itachi's grip pushed Naruto faster through the trees. He was a few days travel from Rock Country.

**1**

Sakura had attempted to sleep, but it was a fitful one. Itachi kept snaking his way into her head, and she couldn't forget just how good the kiss had felt. Sometimes his hands would drift and new, overpowering sensations would occur, and as she woke up again she would feel dirty but also have to remind herself that such things had not happened. Itachi had not actually done _that_ to her and so she should not feel overwhelmed by him. He had not really given her such pleasure.

Groggy and bleary-eyed, Sakura walked along to the main room, attempting to mentally steel herself for what would happen next.

She should be sickened. She had kissed a mass-murderer, a sadist, who seemed intent on destroying Naruto and Sasuke's lives and minds, and now her own. She should be coming apart at the seams. She should have gone insane.

But it had been so good…

She walked into the main room and pulled up short.

Itachi was sat with his back to her at the table. His Akatsuki robe lay discarded by his side and he was wearing a thin mesh shirt that showed all the detail Sakura could care for.

For a minute she simply stood there, watching his shoulders move with his breathing, her eyes following the crease in his back down to the top of his trousers. Every muscle was well defined and there were some scars there that fascinated her. Who had managed to get close enough to Itachi to injure him?

Before the kiss, she would have noted the lack of the cloak with a vague interest before going to sit at the table. Now, she knew, it was a device. Itachi had deliberately taken off the clothing to entice her. She swallowed, gained some control over her watery knees, and then moved to sit at the far end of the table from him. She didn't meet his eyes but he could feel his gaze burning into her

**1**

Itachi let Sakura sit as far away from him as she could. He had noted her sharp intake of breath when she had seen him. Now she was pointedly ignoring him, avoiding looking at his face.

Years of harsh training under first the Uchiha clan and then the ANBU, and finally the Akatsuki, had completely honed Itachi's form. There was not a spare bit of fat on him, even sitting slightly forward as he was. He felt a flicker of amusement as Sakura realised her mistake. Itachi was sitting upright and still, as full of contained grace as a cat. His torso was clearly visible to her where she sat and her eyes moved across his muscles without her realising she was staring. She caught sight of the line of sparse hair leading downwards from him navel and blushed.

This was a game once more. This time, it wasn't for research or work. Itachi had a prize in mind and as always with his targets, he was determined to get it.

He was not surprised by how strongly Sakura was reacting to him. While she slept, he had cast a jutsu that caused dreams of a certain nature, and Sakura was still feeling the after-effects of those. She had already had a taste of him and he of her. Now he needed her to want him as much as he wanted her, and everything would be perfect. The jutsu would last for a few days.

"Sakura-san," he said. Her eyes met his in surprise as he used her name for the first time. He was smiling in a way that didn't reach his eyes and made her shiver. She turned away, wrapping her arms around her body.

He stood and began to walk around the table to her. She instantly scooted away from him, backing up against one wall. Itachi moved carefully and managed to make her accidentally manoeuvre herself into a corner. He stood in front of her, hands pressed against the walls on either side. She wasn't exactly trapped but he was far too close for comfort and she did not dare duck under his arm in case he caught her and pulled her even closer.

He bent forward and brought one hand up, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He wasn't smiling now.

"My brother is even more foolish than I thought to ignore you, Sakura."

Sakura closed her eyes and turned away. She hated feeling this helpless. There was a lot she could do – punch him, run away, scream – but it wouldn't amount to anything. He was too fast.

Her eyes opened again in surprise as the hand left her cheek and Itachi stepped back, allowing her more space. He brought his hands together and Sakura winced as she expected to see them flicker together in another series of seals to cause her physical or mental torture. The hands clasped together and Itachi bowed forward from the hips.

"Eat well, Sakura-san." He withdrew from the room, leaving a bemused Sakura behind him. He had gone from dominating to completely respectful in the space of a second.

As he walked back to his room, Itachi actually grinned. It was a sadistic, twisted smile. She knew he wanted her body fully now. He could be courteous when required, and he intended, over the next few days, to show her a false, gentler side of himself. It was take time, of course, but time was what he had. A basic genjutsu was all he needed.

**1**

**A very quickly written chapter to make up for my lateness. I have a favour to ask – can anyone do a fanart of a scene from this story? I am rubbish at them but there are some I would really like to see drawn and in colour. Thank you if you can help me!**


	9. Chapter 9

**I have forgotten the disclaimer for every single chapter! I don't own Naruto. I do own any non-canon characters who appear (but they don't play large parts, I don't want an accidental Mary-Sue!)**

**Thank you for the offers of fan-art; do whatever scene you like, basically, but send me the link when you're finished! I think the most dramatic one would be the confrontation between Tsukoyomi Itachi and Inner Sakura.**

**There have been requests that I keep this as a 'T' rating, instead of shifting to an 'M'. There will be sexually suggestive scenes but I will avoid excessive detail. **

**Here is chapter nine…**

**1**

Itachi's hands flickered together and there was a shift in the air as time slowed around him. It would give him the extra time he needed to win Sakura's mind. Her soul might cry out against him, but when her physical and mental states were tied to his – Itachi felt something akin to the anticipation before a kill.

This was irrational. That he had managed to kiss her, and got her to kiss back, should have been enough to move his plan along. But it was no longer enough for Itachi himself.

The previous night, while she slept, he had gone into her room and looked down at her, trying to work out exactly what was causing the attraction. Her appearance was unique, it was true, but that couldn't be the sole reason. Sasuke had proved that she was resistible on that front. Her emotional state was vastly improved from what he had heard since she became a Genin, but she was still too open with her fears and her loyalties. No attraction from that quarter, either. He had broken Sasuke's heart and mind – and later his wrist – for being too open about his feelings.

The chemicals the bodies released, maybe. When she had kissed him back, a massive amount of serotonin had been released in his brain. It was an addictive feeling. There had to be something else there, though. Itachi had not kissed a woman in a long time and the last time, it had been for a mission. He had felt nothing akin to this. Something was specific to Sakura that made him feel – _good_ – when he touched her.

It wasn't just the kiss. She had been avoiding as much body contact with him as humanly possible since then but when he had stroked her cheek it made him want more. The skin was so soft.

He decided to put it down to a very strong physical attraction. He was a man, after all, and not completely immune to the pull of women. It had been such a long time since he was last with a female he cared about. He vaguely remembered the girl on his Genin team, who had been as aloof as he was. That association did not last long as Itachi's rise through the ranks was meteoric – however, they did manage to spend enough time together to form a bond. She had died shortly before he massacred his clan.

He shook off the memory and concentrated on the plan. Sasuke would be weaving his way there, following the winding trail that Itachi had left for him. Now, however, Itachi felt something like foreboding. Something had gone awry at some stage in the plan, attraction to Sakura notwithstanding. When he had split up the team, he had known that Kakashi would insist upon Naruto staying with him so as not to open him up as a target to the Akatsuki. A crawling feeling until Itachi's skin warned him that the Copy Nin might have allowed himself to be irrational…

Itachi effortlessly closed off that section of his mind. Naruto was strong, but not nearly powerful enough to take Itachi out without reverting to at least four-tail form, which he never did if he could avoid it. On the bridge when Yamato had seen Orochimaru for the first time, Itachi had been watching from the trees. The Akatsuki had known that Sasori's spy would arrive and that they needed to send somebody in his place to gather the information. Itachi had gone. He had felt no flicker of surprise upon seeing 'Sasori' moving towards the meeting point – the chakra was different. He could not suppress a flicker of surprise when Sakura had fallen and Yamato had produced a Wood Technique to catch her.

He had not been impressed by her at that point. She'd done nothing before being knocked out and falling, although her medical skills caught his attention further on. Whether she knew how to use the chakra to sever internal organs like Kabuto, he didn't know. He didn't intend allowing her the chakra to find out.

After making some food, he walked along to Sakura's room, this time allowing her the courtesy of actually allowing him than teleporting in. He knocked twice, and waited.

**1**

A few minutes before, Sakura had noticed the effect cast by Itachi's time-altering genjutsu. The clock in her room seemed to stop. She went over and picked it up, turning it in her hands. After a minute, the second hand moved. She blinked at it. It continued like that, with every second taking a minute. It wasn't the effect of boredom; her limbs moved at a normal place. It was just that the time seemed to be supremely slow. Naturally, she assumed the clock was broken and left it on the side. A couple of minutes later, she heard a knock.

_Why's he knocking?_

Curiosity alone made her answer it.

"Come in."

Itachi stepped into the room and bowed to her. Sakura was still not used to that. She frowned, but bent forward in return.

"Sakura-san."

"Uchiha-san."

She already thought of him as Itachi, but didn't feel like addressing him by his first time. His face remained impassive as he registered this. He dropped his hands to his sides and inclined his head respectfully.

"Sakura-san, I would appreciate it if you call me by my first name." Sakura's fist clenched. She knew he was trying to get close to her again, and was convinced it was part of the plan to destroy Sasuke. Itachi quickly amended the thought. "I massacred the Uchiha's. I don't believe they are worthy to have me as part of their clan. So Itachi-san is the best way to address me if you wish me not to cause unnecessary suffering."

Itachi never winced, but seeing how her face froze in an expression of hatred, he might have. He realised that any sentence containing something sounding like a threat would not be well received. He apologised instantly, and the anger on her face lessened – a little.

"Very well…Itachi-san."

"There is some food prepared for you." Sakura stood. Itachi was in the doorway and she hung back, not wishing to have to squeeze past him. Itachi moved aside and she gave him a nod of thanks, before walking away swiftly. Itachi followed, keeping a respectful distance behind her.

The food Itachi had prepared was hot and plentiful, and tastier than the usual trail mix that Sakura had to subsist on most of the time. It also made a welcome change from the interminable soup that he seemed to live off. She noted with interest that Itachi did not say 'Itadakimasu' before the meal. He had raised an eyebrow – _a new expression!_ – when she said it, pausing for the allotted time before beginning to eat.

"Itachi-san?"

"Hn?" He could even make the Uchiha Grunt sound like a question.

"Why didn't you say itadakimasu before eating? It's disrespectful."

"Not to myself. I provided and prepared the food, I will thank myself by eating and enjoying it."

Sakura paused and looked directly into his eyes, trying to find some meaning in them. He didn't have his Sharingan on, for once.

"Arigato for the food, Itachi-san."

"Hn." Sakura assumed that this meant _You're welcome_.

They ate in silence for a while. Sakura kept her eyes on her bowl, feeling Itachi's eyes burn into her. He had neglected to use the Mangekyo on her since running into her Inner, but she had learnt from Kakashi that he could still use the Sharingan to knock her unconscious at will. There were also disturbing rumours that he could use his doujutsu to release black flames hotter than those of the sun.

When Itachi spoke again, she realised that she had been trying to avoid breathing as so not to break the silence.

"Sakura-san." She looked up to meet his eyes again. She suddenly noticed that despite his uniform 'cold intent' expression, he had very faint lines reaching slightly upwards from the corners of his eyes. Smile lines. How in the world did somebody like that have smile lines?

"Hai?"

"What was my brother like before he left the village?" Sakura sat in silence for a moment. That had seemed like a lifetime ago. When she was still watching the others' backs. When she was always the last resort. Sasuke had treated her as such.

"He was very cold," she replied eventually. "He was either training, eating, or sleeping. Before you killed his clan-" she let her voice take on a accusing note while not linking in Itachi with the rest of the Uchihas - "he was distant because he was the best. Afterwards, nothing else existed for him. He believed he couldn't be defeated. On our first day as Genins, he almost managed to take one of the bells off Kakashi on his own."

"So he failed to realise that the test was about teamwork?"

"We all did," Sakura said, dropping her head slightly in shame. "Kakashi had to tell us. I was useless back then." Itachi frowned and then relaxed again.

"Did you ever see Orochimaru-san?"

"Hai. During the Chuunin exam. He was about to kill both Sasuke and me when Sasuke managed to escape his killing intent and dragged me to safety. Then he bit Sasuke and-" she stopped short, remembering the curse seal. Itachi continued staring at her for a while. When it became evident she was not going to continue, he shocked her by volunteering some information.

"Orochimaru originally wanted me as his container."

Sakura looked up sharply. His eyes were unreadable but Sakura knew in that second that he was not lying.

**1**

Itachi watched Sakura's shock with a feeling not dissimilar to amusement. There was silence for a minute while she digested the information before responding.

"So it wasn't Sasuke in particular he wanted…"

"He wanted the Sharingan. I was the most proficient user of it and I had the Mangekyo, unlike Sasuke. However, when Orochimaru attempted to take over my body by force, he failed. My will began to eat away at his essence and eventually, I would have absorbed his powers completely, had he not given up."

"Sasuke apparently described something similar when he killed Orochimaru." Itachi nodded.

"Except my brother absorbed the Sannin's powers rather than just killing him, which made him unstable for a while, true?"

Sakura nodded. Sasuke, upon being allowed to resume training in Konoha, had taken fights much further than he ever should, testing his new limits. He became giddy with his power and there had been general fear that he might try to seize control of the village, or leave it again to find Itachi whilst unprepared. His old arrogance was dented when Naruto and Sakura had eventually got sick of it, flattened him and left him recovering in hospital for a few days. Since then he had not acknowledged Sakura as anything other than a team-mate during missions, whereas his respect for Naruto had grown daily. It had irritated her.

Itachi knew this from his observations whilst deciding which member of Team Kakashi to capture. He supposed that was what had fuelled the bond between Sakura and Sai, despite his inability to find a better nickname for her than 'Hag'. Sai still showed her the kind of acknowledgement that Sasuke had never been able to bring himself to do. Judging by the confrontation his clones had faced, Sasuke was under the impression he was rescuing a damsel in distress. Sakura might be uncomfortable, but it was Itachi's testament to her strength that he bothered to use any kind of restraints at all. He didn't take her abilities lightly.

"Orochimaru's weakness was his desire to gain power," Itachi murmured, "coupled with his belief that he was already superior to most shinobi of his age – not without reason. However, he did overestimate himself a few times in his past. He was somewhat arrogant, assuming he had an advantage in almost every situation." He watched as an expression of mild horror flitted over Sakura's face. He was deliberately making Orochimaru sound like Sasuke.

"My brother may be a dobe, but he is not the monster Orochimaru was. Even with what remains of the Nibi-Sannin festering inside him. He has not conducted experiments on civilians to further his strength." He let the corners of his mouth turn up in a very faint smile as Sakura gave him a look of gratitude. He knew she had been worrying about the effect that absorbing Orochimaru would have on Sasuke's mentality, and the comparison of their originally similar personalities had made her momentarily nervous.

Itachi stood to take away his empty bowl, and reached down to take Sakura's. Gently he let his arm brush against the inside of hers as it rested on the table, feeling the particular softness of the underside. He stood still for a minute and let their eyes lock. Sakura's eyes were a dark green in the dim light, and she looked up at him with a confused expression.

As with a nervous animal Itachi carefully placed down the crockery as so to make no noise, and let his fingers brush over the skin. Her hand lay open, fingers slightly curling, on the tabletop. His fingers circled on her palm and hers curled further inwards. Her attention was on the interacting hands now. Hesitantly she began to feel his digits, her hand brushing over the calluses on the skin. Itachi felt a prickling sensation crawling up his wrist, raising gooseflesh. His smile had gone and he was calculating every step.

Sakura's hands had a strong pad as well from the weapons she had handled and repeated soaking and drying out from the medical regime. They were dainty and small-boned but the skin bore the evidence of her tough lifestyle. Carefully Itachi laced his fingers with hers and she looked back up at him again.

She swallowed and very slowly raised her fingers. Itachi kept his grip on her hand for a few seconds longer and then released it. Sakura stood and walked out slowly, her posture that of the thinker. Itachi knew he was successfully creeping into her head by showing a false, gentle side of himself, and she had to eventually fall under his spell.

**1**

**Slightly faster update than usual, woo! R & R please, as usual. Itachi's going to get more persuasive within the next couple of chapters, and don't forget – as well as Sasuke, Naruto is following the scent! What will happen? Stay tuned :D**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


	10. Chapter 10

**Thank you again for all your lovely reviews – this is far and away the most I have ever received for a piece. I'm apologising yet again for letting this one sit and stew for a while – I got the worst writer's block I've had in a long time. You are allowed to throw things at me. I'll already got started on Chapter 11 so hopefully that will be up within the next few days.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. The plot is my own.**

**1**

Sakura was hugely confused, trying to add up the events of the past weeks. Itachi had tortured her, informed her he would kill her, experimented on her, yet in every action had shown a respect for her abilities that he had never shown Sasuke. And now there was the matter of the kiss. She knew that one should have been enough to drive Sasuke mad. Yet Itachi had been giving all the signals that he wanted it again. He had found every excuse to touch her and had been kind to her over the past couple of days.

What the hell was he planning?

There were other issues that needed addressing. Sakura wanted to know exactly why he had not killed the only member of the Uchiha clan who stood a chance of defeating him. She'd mused over it so many times in the last few days that it had taken on the same significance in her mind as what happened to a person after death. It seemed crucial to her. She felt that, if she knew, she could get out of this situation in one piece. Itachi never let even his closest comrades in on every detail of his plans, to allow for things going wrong. If she could just find out how his mind worked… what twisted thoughts were going through his brain.

She also felt a sensation that everything was coming together. The best-laid plans can fail if one error occurs, and while Sakura knew that Itachi had covered for every eventuality the vague sixth sense every good shinobi had was going off. Something was going to go wrong and she was pretty sure she would be the one to suffer if Itachi was driven into a corner while still being in control of her.

It was all going to happen over the next few days. And whatever was going on with Itachi was going to have to reach a conclusion soon.

**1**

Naruto's nose flared as he picked up a new scent. The vibrations that had diverted him had long since stopped but he locked his body in a straight line and kept going. There had to have been an explosion, and so sooner or later he would come across the traces of it.

This scent was similar to Sasuke's, and while there was no other traces of the origin Naruto could make an educated guess at it.

Evidently Itachi had left an open, winding trail for Sasuke to follow at some point, but he hadn't countered for Naruto's ability to track. The last time he left the compound to get provisions, he had not covered up his scent. Naruto wasn't to know that at that point, Itachi was distracted enough by the thought of setting his plan to mentally damage Sakura in motion not to think of it. Sasuke didn't have enough chakra control to focus it to his nose, and Itachi had assumed he'd immobilised the rest of the group.

It was stale, possible five or six days old. Nonetheless, Naruto could pick it up. He was lucky in that it hadn't rained in a few days.

Now he had something new to follow, heading in the same direction he was, Naruto took off with new determination. Sakura-san was not far away now. Naruto felt his teeth grate together as he thought of her completely at the mercy of the Uchiha. If the teme had done anything to harm her…if he ended up killing her…

He'd willingly go to four tails just to kill Itachi.

**1**

Sasuke thought he was going to go crazy. The trail looped and wound around, disappeared, reappeared, went from ground to treetops and back again, sometimes faint, sometimes strong. And in some spots there were dozens of other people who had crossed the area, confusing him momentarily as he struggled to pick up Itachi's trail.

Tracking had never been his strong point. He'd been more focused on power displays. It was the only reason he had taken Karin with him when he first went hunting for Itachi – she could sense his chakra. She'd been so much worse than Sakura had been at age twelve that he'd been relieved when Sugietsu had beheaded her in the middle of the night. Although it had forced him to kill the former Mist-nin out of principle as he had messed up any chance he had of finding Itachi at that point.

_I should have studied even harder in the academy_, he grouched. He couldn't help remembering the Chuunin exams. He had shown he had a great potential for raw power and an ability to use ninjutsu well, but he hadn't passed. Neither had Gaara, Neji, or Naruto. They had power but lacked the necessary strategy. Sasuke hadn't picked up the hint at the time and grew ever more isolated, thinking he needed to be even more powerful.

Even with thoughts of hatred for Itachi overwhelming his mind, he still had moments to think on his treatment of Sakura. As he had been resting and rebuilding Chakra the previous day, he remembering fighting Gaara in the forest following the final Chuunin exam. What was it he had said to Naruto?

"_You'd better save Sakura. I never want to see an important person die in front of me again."_

Yet…he'd treated her as unnecessary ever since he returned – ever since he had hit that nerve centre in her neck and deposited her on the bench before leaving Konoha for Otokagure. Sasuke now knew she was important to him and he was going to let her know about it. It didn't matter if she hadn't been able to fight off Itachi. Nobody who didn't have a Sharingan could. What mattered was getting her back safe again. He didn't know what Itachi might do to Sakura just to pass the time, but Sasuke swore that he would put Itachi through seven hells of pain before killing him if he had seriously hurt her.

It had surprised him when he realised afterwards that revenge on Itachi for his clan had not been at the forefront of his mind for the past few days. He still loathed the man, still dreamed up the most violent genjutsus to put him through when they met, but it was all in relation to the pink-haired medic. He didn't care if it was because of the principle of having something he took for granted removed from his life. He was going to save Sakura, whatever it took.

**1**

Sakura shifted, popping the vertebrae in her back as she awoke. The clock indicated that she had only slept for two hours, yet she felt as though she had had a solid night's sleep. She settled into medic mode and shut her eyes.

_Heartbeat: Fast._

_Blood is moving around the body faster than normal._

_Body clock indicates that eight hours of rest have been taken._

This was confusing. Everything inside her body was operating faster than was healthy. She could be going into cardiac arrest, and for a second Sakura's breath froze in her lungs with fright.

She heard a snapping noise, and then her heartbeat returned to normal.

_What was that?_

She considered the options. While she was asleep, she was free from any mind tricks that Itachi could have played. Other than the dreams…She shook her head and returned to her thoughts. She had not had a nightmare. Nor had she been startled out of sleep.

Could Itachi have slowed time somehow?

It would make sense. As she woke up, her brain entered the time stream of the world Itachi had created, but her natural working that were not directed by the conscious mind kept going at the pace of regular time. In her slowed-down state, it would make her heart and breathing seem excessively fast until her mind gained control and her whole body came completely under control of the jutsu. It would also explain why, in real time, she had had a decent night's sleep and yet, in this world, she had woken at three in the morning.

"Kai!" Sakura formed the seal and pushed chakra into her mind. There was no shift around her and she opened one eye cautiously to look at the clock. It hadn't changed.

Was she just being paranoid?

Sakura flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a minute. Even though there was nothing to disturb her now, she knew she would not get back to sleep. Grumbling, she headed through to the courtyard just for something to do.

Itachi was poised in a corner, eyes shut, reminding her of a spider lying in wait. She stood and watched him for a minute. He was definitely not asleep, and Sakura realised that she could never imagine him sleeping. He was always alert, always wary. Even when he did sleep, she imagined it was very light, the slightest disturbance instantly wakening him. She remembered Gaara's having a similar problem – although it was more of an attribute in the shinobi world – with his sleeping after the Shukaku extraction.

His years of insomnia made him terrified of exposing himself to whatever could attack while he slept. Sakura had helped him with that and to her surprise she found herself thinking fondly of the Sand-nin. His company was quiet, not as obtrusive as Naruto's, but not as arrogant as Sasuke's. He was intelligent and while she had helped him develop a normal sleeping pattern they had had interesting conversations. He had mentioned inviting her to Suna again, for no other reason than wanting to thank her properly for her help. She suddenly desperately wanted to see him.

"Are you unable to sleep, Sakura-san?" Itachi hadn't opened his eyes.

"I've slept." She made her voice just cold enough to provoke him. He opened his eyes and frowned a little.

"Not enough. You should be rested for the fight."

"So should you." Something had made Sakura slightly reckless and Itachi's eyes narrowed.

"I do not need sleep. I can meditate enough to rest me fully while remaining alert." That made little sense to Sakura. Meditation was a withdrawal into the self, blocking out surrounding distractions. It was for development of the mind. Perhaps lack of sleep was the cause of the lines under his eyes.

Sakura sat opposite him, legs crossed.

"You've slowed time."

Silence.

"I've noticed it. I can't dispel it. I assume it's a genjutsu that you've trapped us both in. Are you going to tell me why?"

"Events were advancing too fast for what I have in mind. Should a person not under the influence look in, we will be moving extraordinarily slowly. I need extra time here."

"Why? You are prepared for Sasuke. You've got me under your control. You've kissed me-" she spat it out bitterly – "what else is there to do?" Itachi shut his eyes again.

"You are interesting. I intend to learn more about you before I kill you."

That was not the answer Sakura was expecting. There was a long period of silence before she spoke again, and she had moved away from the topic.

"Why didn't you kill Sasuke?"

**1**

Itachi felt a flicker of surprise, with no little amusement. She must have really relaxed – or be utterly without self-control – to ask him that. He would humour her, however.

Sakura was looking at him suspiciously. She had heard his little 'huh' that indicated laughter.

"I could see the limit of every other Uchiha," he eventually replied. "They were no match for me. My brother, however, was doing well, but I felt he could match me. Maybe even surpass me. He needed motivation and I needed to test my capacity. The clan was ruthless in the training of the young, and it was suffocating me. Those elders who did not let the brightest and the best run the clan, preferring to stick to their rules and their petty jealousies, letting them affect the Uchiha Clan. I knew they would do the same to Sasuke. They would make him a tool and then let him gather rust. I released him from that destiny."

Sakura glared at him and tried to speak, but Itachi held up a hand.

"A long time ago, I told Sasuke that I would always be there as a bar for him to overcome – whether he hated me or not. I told him it was the purpose of older brothers.

"I am still a mark by which he measures himself, and the day he overcomes me is the day I am of no longer any value to him. Over the past years I have used every opportunity I had to goad him further. Now a decision will be made. He will either win against me through demonstration of his bonds to you, or he will fail. He hates me. If he cares for you in equal measure to that hatred then he will prevail. If not, he will not survive."

"Must I die for him?" Sakura asked. It wasn't pleading. It was a straight question. "Do I have to cease existing for your experiment to succeed?"

Itachi slid his eyes towards her. She was sitting in the corner opposite him, the moonlight shining in at an angle onto her. She was looking up at the sky, and the light streaming in gave her skin a luminescence that intoxicated him. Her face was serious, and her eyes a brighter green than he had realised.

She was beautiful and she was smart. She had experienced so much more trauma and fear than most ninjas. It was her bad luck that it was a result of ending up on a team with the two shinobi whose pasts eclipsed the pain it caused her in the present, and who were taken to be infinitely stronger than her.

"No."

Her head snapped towards him. "What?"

Itachi gave her the first genuine smile of his life.

His jaw felt rusty but it reached his eyes and he saw she knew he meant it.

"It is not necessary for you to die. I just need him to believe it."

**1**

Sakura somehow knew, right then, than even if Sasuke lost, Itachi wouldn't kill her. But still…

"So…if Sasuke loses…what happens?"

Itachi stood and walked over before settling down next to her. She didn't shift away.

"He will suffer and he will die. I will move on and – considering the way this is going…" his voice dropped. "Take you with me."

Sakura's eyes widened.

Itachi was not waiting for a reply, but Sakura's mind was scrabbling for answers. Up until now she knew he had been playing mind tricks, a further end to Sasuke's suffering. This, however, seemed to be real. He wanted to know more about her, keep her with him…to no end but his own desire.

"Why?"

Sakura could feel her heart hammering in her ribs as he turned to look at her. His body moved as he freed his arms and crossed his legs.

"You fascinate me."

The next second Sakura was sitting in Uchiha Itachi's lap, his arms wound tight around her. He looked directly into her eyes and Sakura felt another jolt of shock. He'd turned the Sharingan off.

_Stop this! Stop! Think of Sasuke!_

"But Sas-"

Itachi's mouth covered hers and her mind was wiped blank. It was as incredible as it had been the first time and Sakura realised she had missed it. Her whole body seemed to be thrumming and she didn't make the conscious decision for her arms to reach up and wrap themselves around Itachi's neck. When one of Itachi's hands crept up her shirt and started drawing patterns on the skin of her stomach she trembled and felt Itachi smirk against her mouth.

Her mind was foggy and Inner Sakura was yelling for common sense, for her to stop, to run away.

Sakura didn't want to. Itachi was worshipping her and her body and she suddenly didn't care if it didn't last. Her sense of touch was heightened and every brushing motion Itachi made left her tingling. Her hands were wandering as well, finding a sensitive line below his navel that caused him to shudder when she ran a fingernail down it.

Itachi stood, lifting Sakura in his arms, the two of them still attached to each other's lips. Sakura knew where they were heading and she wanted it, she didn't care, to hell with the consequences, just for once to do something she wanted…

Itachi carried her into his room and the door shut behind them with a soft click.

**1**

**This was DIFFICULT. I apologise. And don't think my Itachi's gone all mushy, either – he's still going to be a sociopath! **

**Also, there will NOT be a lemon in the next chapter. I can't write them and there have been requests for me not to up the rating, anyway. I'll just stick to the suggestive stuff.**

**R&R please!**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


	11. Chapter 11

**Wow. When I posted the last chapter I was expecting a barrage of insults for moving things too fast. Thank you all so much. Remember, if you like the fic – review, and recommend to friends! (Shameless plug) :D**

**1**

_Mmm…I'm warm…where am I?_

Sakura's mind was still groggy with sleep and she just lay there for a while trying to figure out what was going on. She wasn't in her cell, nor was she in her room in Konoha. There was no light source other than a candle that was burnt down to the last inch.

After this, she noticed the arm locked around her waist.

She peered over her shoulder and saw black hair spilling over the pillow.

The night before came rushing back.

Every muscle in Sakura's body locked in horror. An impulse, a stupid, reckless impulse had led to _this_…and now everything was going to go wrong. The previous night, Itachi had told her straight that he would probably take her with him when he moved on. That should have been a threat and yet she took it as a compliment. She was his captive! Hell…now she was his slave. His chakra circulated inside her and although he had only taken advantage of it once, she had no doubt that he wouldn't hesitate to use it again if she delayed him.

Desperately scrabbling for reasons, she tried to tell herself that her mind had been swayed by that jutsu, her body forced to react to him. But she knew her mind had been her own. She could have pulled away, fought him. It might not have stopped him but she would have been absolved of her part in it.

Instead…

Sakura looked over at Itachi again who seemed to be genuinely sleeping for the first time. She felt blood rush to her cheeks as her memory saw fit to provide her with some of the more graphic details of the event. Itachi's talented fingers dancing across her body and the sounds they had made together. The way she'd _felt_…the way he seemed to find perfection in every part of her and always let her know. Not one part of her criticised as weak or useless. It was new and it was good. And now they lay together with Sakura fretting and panicking and Itachi…

Fast asleep.

Inner Sakura could not be suppressed from muttering, _Typical man._

_What do I do, what do I do now?_

Gingerly, her hands went to the arm around her. Annoyingly, she was lying on his fingers.

_He's not going to be able to feel anything after I've been on them all night!_

Was it morning, though? She didn't know if Itachi's jutsu was still in place. She tried lifting herself upwards so begin peeling his arm from around her when his grip tightened, drawing her closer to him.

"Ohiyo, Sakura-san." She felt him placing a kiss on one shoulder.

"O-Ohiyo, Itachi-san."

"Oh? I'm not Itachi-sama anymore?"

Sakura looked over him with horror. _Surely I didn't call him…_

He smirked.

Did Uchiha Itachi just make a _joke_?

She supposed it wasn't out of the realms of possibility considering the inhuman killing machine had successfully got her into his bed only a few hours before.

"You were regretting it, weren't you?" He muttered into her ear, brushing away some of her hair. Her silence was enough to answer him and his grip on her loosened. Sakura didn't take the opportunity to bolt, however. She just lay there.

"Did you plan this?" Itachi's fingers were idly playing with a pink lock.

"No. I planned to kiss you for the sake of torturing Sasuke. I had no idea that I would desire kissing you again, or anything more." Sakura relaxed a bit. If it had been part of Itachi's scheme to seduce her then she might have committed hara-kiri in shame. As it was, they had both been caught off guard.

That didn't mean she was entirely comfortable with the situation. Itachi hadn't planned it but he was still a malicious man and she had little doubt that if he could twist the events to his advantage and further destroy Sasuke he would.

"How long is it until Sasuke gets here?"

"Two more days."

Sakura sat up and shifted to the edge of the bed. It was all too fast…she wasn't sure how she was going to react when she saw Sasuke. She knew she didn't love Itachi. He didn't love her. He had been drawn to her out of curiosity and it would have been hard for any woman to resist him. Yet, she doubted Sasuke would see it that way. He would think if she slept with Itachi, then she must love him. If she loved Itachi, she was automatically Sasuke's enemy. And she didn't even want to think about what might happen if Kakashi and Naruto picked up on it.

_I fraternized with the enemy…_

She would certainly be punished. Shinobi should be hardened enough not to fall prey to wild impulses. Itachi's actions had at least had precedent. He had kissed her before, albeit in disguise, and had since left small indications that he would like to do it again. She had woken up hating him and fallen asleep next to him.

Itachi folded his hands under his head and looked up at the ceiling. Sakura's eyes were drawn to a large scar across his chest. _Who gave him that?_

Without thinking about it Sakura traced a finger over the scar. She missed Itachi's smirk. There was silence for a while as Sakura let herself mentally replay the scenes from the previous night. Her cheeks turned red. Itachi idly lifted a hand and brushed a thumb along her jaw.

"No regrets," he murmured. Sakura nearly cricked her neck looking around at him. "You wanted it. You were not drunk or under my control. Don't punish yourself for it."

_No, because my team-mates will do that for me_, she thought wryly. Itachi shifted upright, moving into a sitting position, the sheet barely keeping him decent. Sakura felt her eyes drifting downwards and looked away. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"You understand that I will mostly likely use this to my advantage." There was nothing apologetic in his tone, or any malicious joy. It was a flat statement and Sakura accepted it. He had always had the upper hand anyway and she had gone and given him extra ammunition.

"Will you make me fight him?"

"In all probability, if he fails to show affection for you. If he just yells about revenge I will immediately activate my chakra in you and set you on him. As you do so I will goad him with details from last night. He will look into your eyes and see the truth. You will not be able to beat him but his spirit will be crushed. I will then have you visibly by my side when I kill him. The last thing he will see is us with our lips together again."

Sakura felt like a princess who had gone to bed with the prince only to find he'd turned back into a frog by the next morning.

She shouldn't have thought anything different. Itachi was the master of mind games and even if Sasuke didn't care for her it would utterly break him to see a former comrade apparently in league with the traitor and murderer of his clan.

_Kami…make him show some affection for me…just a little…_

She didn't want to go with Itachi. He was interesting and good-looking, but the facts could not be denied. A psychopath, sociopath, cold-blooded murderer and torturer, she would constantly be at odds with who he was. He was not a tender lover as she had discovered. If she went with him, she would never be truly happy again. Yet he had told her clearly what he had planned. He could make her go with him, and make her come to him at night. The world would see her walking in step with him, happy and uncaring of his past. She would be his prisoner until he tired of her, and then…

She doubted he would just let her walk away. She believed she had seen too much of Itachi's methods and if he grew bored she would not live another day. He couldn't kill her with Mangekyo because of her Inner, but he could use his chakra to force her to her knees and make her wait for the kunai to pierce the back of her neck. Or he could place her in a genjutsu so strong and terrifying that it left her a gibbering, useless wreck for the rest of her days.

**1**

Itachi was watching her face when he told her of his plans for Sasuke's demise. Pain flittered across it and she started chewing her lip. She turned away again and even though he could now only see her back, he knew she was worrying. She would not go with him willingly, now. Itachi had been certain of one thing, the night before. He wanted her to know his true colours before they left together. He did not want to travel around with someone who believed they had reformed him, only to be permanently and bitterly disappointed.

He wondered briefly if he did still want to take her. It would be akin to dragging a reluctant dog around on a short leash. Something inside him murmured, _yes…she's yours now…Sasuke forfeited all right to her and you want more of her._ Sakura had given him her body. He had wormed his way into her mind. The last challenge, which he might never be able to achieve, was to have her heart. Her whole being, the very essence of Haruno Sakura, bound to him and no other. He wanted to see if he could possess her in such depth that she broke the bonds with her former village and her best friends.

He strongly doubted if she would ever gain his love in return. However, she still presented a challenge to him, and Itachi would not just kill her when there were so many questions left unanswered. He was fairly certain that Sasuke would tell Itachi he wanted revenge. To survive, and for Sakura to go free, he had to have his mind on Sakura alone. And not to be on a mission to gain revenge for Itachi stealing Sakura from under his nose, but a mission to rescue Sakura against all odds. The chances of that were low.

Initially, Itachi had only needed Sasuke to declare an expression of sentiment for Sakura and the fight would be conceded. Now, he was making it more specific. He knew he was just looking for excuses, trying to tie up the loopholes so that he could have the twisted joy of having Sakura next to him while watching his brother cough up his own blood in the dust. There was still so much to discover about her, and he was certain that deeper secrets lay within her mind, that were his for the plucking if he could gain enough trust. It would be a long process. After making her fight Sasuke and taking her away she would not be comfortable around him for a long time.

But Itachi was well-bred and knew how to express kindness – he just didn't practice it. He would be the perfect travelling companion and they would travel together under a henge, in the guise of lovers. She would come to see the false, gentle side he developed, and in time…

Sakura got up and left the room. Itachi switched his Sharingan on and followed every step of her movement, noting hesitation. He did not try to stop her. One way or another, she would be back in his bed that night.

**1**

Naruto felt a strong, familiar scent fill his nose. Sasuke was only a few hundred yards ahead, moving full pelt. The trail was now running in a straight line, right on top of Itachi's, which was surrounded now by broken branches and faded footprints. Naruto grunted and strained himself further, pushing himself ever faster, looking for the grey against the green…

_There!_

"SASUKE!"

The Uchiha genius was obviously startled, and in his tired state his foot slipped. Naruto plunged forward and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Both shinobi came to rest on a branch, gasping for air. Sasuke had not let himself rest in a while and his speed had been such that his chakra was greatly depleted. Naruto stared at the ground, sweat running down his face.

"Naruto…why did Kakashi…?"

"Itachi arranged to split us up," Naruto said shortly. "He is prepared for you. He is not prepared for me. Above all else we need to get Sakura-chan out of there as fast as possible." Sasuke nodded.

"I must rest. I cannot face Itachi like this." Naruto gritted his teeth in impatience, but didn't push the subject of hurrying. Itachi was waiting. So they had a little time. Sasuke began to set up camp and Naruto offered to scout ahead half an hour to try to work out how much longer it would take. The trail was fairly fresh and so they could not be too far.

Just as he was preparing to turn around at the end of his recon, Naruto noticed a gap in the trees. He moved towards it and gasped.

In front of him was a vast sea of perfectly flat rock. He could see a blotch on the far horizon but couldn't make out what it was. Itachi's scent was strong here and Naruto knew he and Sasuke would have no cover at all. The elder Uchiha would be able to see them coming from miles away.

"Kuso…"

They had banked on the element of surprise, but it was out of the question. They would have to cover the rocky wilderness as fast as they could, extract Sakura, and get out again. There was no shelter at all. They could be there within a day but Itachi could not be bypassed. He would see them and then there would be nowhere to hide. Naruto's mind locked onto one thing. _Sakura-chan is our goal. Above all else, she must leave this place alive._

He turned and headed back towards camp to inform Sasuke of what he had found.

**1**

Sakura had never been especially religious. It didn't feature strongly in the shinobi world as scriptures damning the action of theft and murder were basically preaching against the ninja livelihood. Yet now she was in her room, praying like never before.

_Kami, please…get me out of here, keep me safe, let Sasuke and me escape alive! I'll never be cruel to Naruto again and I'll make peace with Ino. Anything…I'll do anything…please…_

She stood up sharply as Itachi flared his chakra outside the door before entering.

"Sakura-san."

She didn't deign to reply, but simply looked at him.

Itachi made a motion with his fingers and suddenly Sakura knelt and bowed to him. _Damn it, he's using it for little things like this?_

"That's much better, Sakura. Now, what do you say?"

"Itachi-san."

"Good."

Sakura was beginning to sweat. Itachi had got her to press her forehead to the floor, arms out in front, a picture of complete submission. She could not look up at him and she felt him moving around. She desperately wanted to get up, to present less of a target. She felt him sitting next to her, and then a hand running along her back. It felt like the most tender gesture in the world.

"Why are you in here?"

"I wanted to spend some time with you."

Silence.

"You've got me prostate on the floor like a slave. I'm not inclined to talk."

"I didn't say I wished to talk."

Sakura felt her muscles lock in terror.

"You are not just going to have me whenever you feel like it."

"Even if you want it?"

"I don't want...it…" Sakura's voice trailed off as Itachi's hand stilled on her back. There was a rushing noise as all the chakra inside her suddenly rushed to one point and made her scream.

Not with pain.

Itachi withdrew and relaxed his grip. Sakura flopped out on the floor.

"There is food ready, Sakura-san. You need your strength." With no effort he picked her up in his arms and carried her through to the main room, depositing her on a cushion. "When you have eaten, you must bathe."

Sakura hadn't really thought about it before, but now it occurred to her that she was a mess. Her clothes were torn and dirty and her skin felt grimy.

Itachi kept a respectful distance away while Sakura cleaned herself up. She emerged feeling a lot better physically, but still somehow…grubby. The Uchiha left her be for a while, to think about what was going to happen soon. They had one more day together and then, one way or another, their respective fates would be decided. The worst part was that Sakura now knew that however things turned out she would walk away alive, provided Sasuke didn't kill her in a blind rage. She was going to see somebody die a horrible, bloody death the day after tomorrow.

She suddenly remembered her first time taking the Chuunin exam, watching the preliminaries. Neji had told Hinata she was not suited to be a shinobi because she was too kind, too soft. Sakura felt that way herself. She was not adverse to a little cruelty under the right circumstances, but she could not be cavalier about killing and maiming people like some shinobi. It was one of the reasons she had chosen to specialise in healing instead of assassination or espionage when she joined the ANBU. Her chakra could be used as an invisible weapon, severing internal organs but leaving no trace of an entry point, but she did not wish to be used that way.

She knew Itachi deserved to suffer. But if it happened and Sasuke did beat him, she would take no joy in seeing it. She might have done before all this. She was certain that she would have felt a brief, savage happiness if she had simply heard that Itachi had suffered and died for everything he had done. But something about the elder Uchiha had worked its way into her head. Possibly now because she knew why he had killed his clan but not Sasuke.

She would be used as a tool to fight Sasuke. But she couldn't help but wonder what she would have done if she was present at the battle but not entirely under Itachi's control. Would she have stood on the sidelines shaking, a parallel to her Genin days? Or sided with Sasuke?

She would never had fought willingly alongside Itachi. The concept of betrayal to her village and to Naruto and Sasuke was revolting to her. Yet Sasuke would see it as a betrayal anyway that she had not only allowed herself to see a gentler, less malicious side of Itachi, but had slept with him. He would know, somehow. He might not tell anyone else but if they both got out of this alive Sakura had little doubt that the indifferent way he had treated her before would be intimate compared to what was to come.

She growled angrily.

How had she been so _stupid_?! She had known what the effects would be and she had damned them, ignored them in favour of her own pleasure. _Selfish, stupid, short-sighted…_

Inner Sakura addressed a more pressing question right then.

_What if Itachi was lying to you?_

She left the main room and began to walk along the hall just as Itachi came out. Their eyes met and for the first time Sakura stared into the Sharingan without fear, trying to interpret the look behind them. What if he had seduced her for his own purposes, but to keep her docile he had pretended otherwise?

Itachi kept walking and the moment passed. Sakura felt his hand brush along her side and knew, suddenly, that he was going to have her visit him again that night. And she would not resist.

_You've tasted forbidden fruit and now you want more._

Really, how much more damage could she do?

Inner Sakura wailed in her head as Sakura let her resolve melt.

**1**

"How far was it?" Sasuke grunted.

"One more mile and we'll see it."

The boys were pushing themselves so hard that the veins stood out on their temples. One mile passed in a flash and then they were standing on the edge of the plain. They had one plan for approaching undetected.

"Henge!"

Both transformed into themselves, but completely grey – the same shade as the rock all around. They masked their chakra, and began to walk towards the house on the horizon.

**1**

**I guess you can tell what is coming next chapter. R&R please! Good reviews make me happy.**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you again, all faithful reviewers. This is not the last chapter!**

**1**

To Sasuke and Naruto's collective surprise, the trail led them right by the house. Nonetheless, Naruto stopped and inhaled deeply, before concluding that while the place had traces of Itachi's scent around it, there was none of Sakura's. However, the trail at that point dwindled to almost nothing and Naruto swore.

"Sasuke – I'm going to have to reveal my chakra for a moment." Sasuke nodded. Naruto's hands moved swiftly together to form the Summoning seals. As he pushed his chakra into the ground, both boys twitched with nervousness. It was as good as sending a signal to Itachi that they were there. In a puff of white smoke, Pakkun appeared.

"Ah, Naruto," the little pug began. "What is it?"

"We need you to follow this trail," Naruto said, shortly. "Uchiha Itachi has taken Sakura-chan prisoner and we're close to wherever he is hiding, but I can't risk accumulating any more chakra to my nose or I'll draw attention." Pakkun nodded and put his nose to the ground. Normally he would have made a comment but some of the Kyuubi's chakra had already mixed with Naruto's and aggravating the boy at this point was unwise.

They continued to walk for a while, following the trotting ninken. Naruto was feeling like he was trying to hold back a tide as he forced the Kyuubi chakra to lie dormant within him. Sasuke had turned on his Sharingan and looked around for any signs of traps or genjutsu. After about a mile, Pakkun stopped.

"This place reeks of danger," he murmured. "There are exploding tags hidden under the ground everywhere, as well as various trap ninjutsus. We will have to go carefully, but from the look of things they are more to keep somebody from getting out as opposed to people getting in." Sasuke's eyes narrowed. Naruto growled.

"Can you see the entrance?" he asked urgently.

"Hai." Pakkun lifted a paw and pointed at what appeared to be a misplaced square shadow in the ground a few hundred meters away. "That appears to be the only one. It's a courtyard, and I can smell the scent heading away underground. I can smell Sakura, as well."

"Can you tell if she is all right?"

Pakkun frowned. His tracking abilities were actually based on the fact that he could see smells as colours. All around the hole were yellow blotches in the air, indicating that several explosive tags had gone off. The copper-coloured scent of blood was in the air. It was old and the injuries would hopefully not have been extensive from that, but Pakkun saw Sakura's scent going from mid-air straight down into the courtyard. She would have sustained a few broken bones from that. It wasn't just that, though. He could smell something that made no sense to him. The odour was similar to the one he smelt following Kakashi about when he had spent the night with a woman, but a darker shade, and drifted out from the corridors under the ground.

_What has he done to her?_

Both boys were staring at him anxiously after he had drifted off. He shook his head to clear it and explained.

"She's evidently tried to escape at some point, and the explosive tags went off and blew her back into the courtyard. She's likely to have broken a few bones as a result. However, the scent is faded, so she has probably healed herself by now."

Sasuke's eyes roved over the area.

"Pakkun, can you smell the tags and tell us how to avoid them?"

"Hai. Follow me exactly."

It took them nearly half an hour to manoeuvre their way around all the various traps. Several times Naruto became hasty and Sasuke had to grab his collar as he nearly put his foot into an explosive field. The entrance was so close and several times they had to turn away and try a new route as they were completely blocked. Sasuke snarled in anger.

So close… "Here!" Pakkun said, making them both start. "You can jump from here straight in without encountering a trap. I cannot tell you what obstacles you will face inside, so keep alert." "Thank you," Naruto muttered. "You can go now." The ninken nodded and vanished. Sasuke made a mental note to ask him when Kakashi had let him sign the contract with his nin-dogs, but that was not the main subject at the moment. Both boys gathered their strength to their legs, and leapt down into the courtyard. They had taken so long walking there to avoid their chakra being detected, and then walking around the traps, that the sky was already darkening. They needed to hurry. It was going to be a clear night and they had no cover. 

**1**

Sakura felt the tug inside her as Itachi pulled on the chakra in her body.

Tomorrow, Sasuke will come. And I will either be saved or condemned… 

She walked towards Itachi's room, her legs beginning to shake. Last time, she had been in Itachi's arms, wrapped up in him. Now she felt like the fish on the end of a reel, being slowly but inevitably pulled towards her fate. He was not going to release the chakra hold on her until she was in his room, and then she didn't know if she would be able to refuse him. She didn't know if she wanted to. Nobody else had made her feel like he did when he touched her as he had that night, and there was something addictive in that fact alone.

When she came in, he was already shirtless, and he made her sit on the bed beside him before released the chakra hold and replacing it with his own grip, pulling her close and kissing her hard. His hand drew patterns on the base of her spine, sending shivers along her back. That sort of tender touch wouldn't last long. Itachi was by no means a gentle lover and had almost sent her crazy last time as he had overloaded her senses. His hand travelled further up and started to peel her shirt from her shoulders.

And then there was a bang from further up the hall and they both froze. Itachi's eyes were actually widened in shock, and Sakura nearly fainted as she heard Naruto's voice.

"Kuso! Not in here!"

"Next one along," murmured Sasuke's voice. "He probably knows we are here now. We have to find Sakura right away or things are going to get ugly." Both her boys had arrived! Sakura barely had a moment to feel relief when sharp metal poked into her neck. Itachi's arm wrapped around her waist and he picked her off the floor, kunai firmly against her throat. In a sharp moment, he kicked the door open and sped straight past the two startled shinobi in the hall.

"After him!" Sakura could feel two explosive bursts of chakra as Naruto and Sasuke ceased to cloak theirs and followed the elder Uchiha. Itachi had actually been caught off guard in his moment of lust and it was evident that things were not going as he had planned. Having the Kyuubi contained there was going to make things very difficult for him. As well as that, he had planned to have the battle on the plain, away from the entrance, and to be waiting in that location for Sasuke when he arrived the next day. If nothing else, he would stick to that part.

Itachi sped along in the dwindling half-light for two miles before pulling up short and turning around. Behind him, Naruto and Sasuke stopped, kunais held in front of them, waiting for Itachi to make the first move. Both boys were looking at Sakura instead of into Itachi's eyes.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled. "Are you alright?"

Sakura had been lowered to the floor by this point, Itachi still keeping his weapon at her neck. She gave Naruto a shaky smile, but her mind was on Sasuke. He had focus on her and her alone or Kami knew what would happen.

Please…see me as more than a rescue mission…save yourself… 

"Well, otouto?" Itachi asked. "Are you not going to scream about being an avenger and finally gaining revenge for you clan?" Sakura felt sick terror clamp her stomach again. Itachi was deliberately goading Sasuke. He _wanted_ Sasuke to fail his test. Sasuke couldn't know that. Surely he was going to respond as Itachi hoped and doom them all.

"Give Sakura back. Now."

"Still your toy, Sasuke? Still annoyed at me for taking away something you never had a use for in the first place?"

"YOU'RE WRONG!" Sasuke screamed. "She's not mine, she belongs to herself and she shouldn't be a bargaining chip for you! If you won't release her-" electricity startled to crackle around Sasuke's fist – "I'll have to make you let her go. My clan are dead and I can never change that, but Sakura is still alive and one of my precious people. I won't let you use her for your own sick purposes."

The only sound for a minute after that was the noise of Sasuke's Chidori splintering the air. The sun was almost fully set now.

Sakura's heart was hammering and she could barely breathe. Against the odds, Sasuke had focused on her, and her alone. He had fulfilled Itachi's requirements. She could go free.

And then Itachi's arms wrapped around her and she felt the true strength of them. His muscles were like lengths of steel cable as he clasped her close. One hand travelled up and wound around her throat as Itachi kissed her neck. He didn't need to shout. Anyone else might have made a display, but Itachi's voice was soft and sure.

"She's mine."

Everybody froze. Sakura's couldn't even feel terror; she was so numb with shock. Had Itachi had any intention of letting her go? Sasuke was looking confused and Naruto's face was creased in fury.

"Teme! She's not yours! She never will be!"

Itachi smirked and turned Sakura to face him. _Oh no…please no, don't, don't make me do it..._

"Sakura. Kiss me."

For the first time it was truly forced and Sakura felt sheer horror as their tongues wound with each other, his hand fisting in her hair, the other creeping further down her back in a display of intimacy that would drive Naruto and Sasuke crazy. When Itachi pulled away, he made her face them again. Naruto's face was filled with heart-break and Sasuke gave off an aura of blind rage. Sakura could still make expressions and she could still speak. Her voice was pleading.

"He's forcing me! He's-"

"Sakura." Itachi's voice, quiet as ever, broke through the tide of panicked thoughts in her brain. "Be silent." Sakura's mouth jammed shut and she struggled against it, but could do nothing. Sasuke, however, had realised what was going on.

"You…complete…heartless…_teme_…"

"What are you planning to do with her?" Naruto asked, growling. His eyes were already red.

"I will kill you both. I will then take her with me wherever I go. She is mine and so she will stay."

"Who's treating her like a toy now, Itachi?" Sasuke snapped. Itachi's fingers grazed across Sakura's face in a horrible parody of tenderness.

"But you neglected her. I picked her up, tested her limits, respected her, and now…I believe I have earned her more than you. I will keep her and treat her with the attention she deserved from you."

She's not something to claim ownership of!" Naruto yelled. "Have you asked her if she wants to go with you? It's not love if you cannot let her make her own decision!" Itachi looked at the ground, and then let a rare, humourless chuckle slip out.

"Naruto-kun," he murmured. "Whoever said I loved her?"

**1**

Itachi surveyed the boys facing him with a sense of satisfaction. He had felt Sakura tense up again under his grip. Sasuke looked horrified and Naruto had Kyuubi chakra leaking out of him. He released Sakura's mouth and now she was railing against him, but he did not pay attention. She was likely to be feeling like a Genin again. He had heard about how weak she was back then. She could do next to nothing in this situation.

"She's fascinating, isn't she?" Itachi was addressing Sasuke. "Look at the hair, her eyes. You'll never see another like her in this life. Strong, yet delicate. Sensitive but also mindlessly violent on occasion. You missed all of this, foolish brother. At the right time, you could have had her all to yourself, and she might have healed the scar upon your heart that I carved when I killed the clan. You would never have gone to Orochimaru-san. You wouldn't have had the experiences that hardened you further. The sacrifice might have been some of your formidable power, but instead – you would have been happy. Revenge is no substitute for happiness. Or pleasure." One Itachi's hands released Sakura to trail along her neck. She could do nothing but look at the boys pleadingly.

"Now," Itachi said. "How about you try to get your precious cherry blossom back?"

"Tajuu-" Sasuke caught Naruto's wrist and stopped him.

"That won't help," he said. "We need to think of Sakura's safety. If you just rush, even if you land a hit, you could injure her at the same time."

_It would appear that Sasuke-kun cares more for her now than he did before,_ Itachi thought. _I wonder what they will try._

He stepped quickly to the side as the clone he had sensed moving under the ground jumped up behind him and attempted to wrap its arms around his neck. A quick chop to the back of the neck and it vanished.

"That was better than I remember, Naruto-kun."

Now that he was unhindered by the massive Akatsuki cloak, Itachi was even faster than normal, although he had one arm occupied with keeping Sakura clasped to him. If he put her down for a second there was a chance the boys could distract him and snatch her from under his nose. Then, all they would need to do was run like hell. If Naruto was charged with carrying her, he could use the Kyuubi chakra to boost his speed even beyond Itachi's levels, and carry on for longer than Sasuke. In all likeliness if that happened Itachi would be hampered in the chase by having to fight off Sasuke most of the way.

Sasuke's Chidori was still crackling, and he made a hand signal at Naruto, who formed the Bunshin seal again. Three clones appeared and began to form a Rasengan in Naruto's left hand – but it was bigger, and felt more deadly, than the Rasengan that Itachi had known the Kyuubi container to use.

_This must be how Kakuzu was defeated._

"Together, Naruto!" Naruto roared and held the spiral of chakra of chakra above his head, which grew and formed a massive shruiken. Itachi's eyes widened. _Can he throw his own chakra?_

"RASENSHRUIKEN!"

"CHIDORI!"

Both boys charged at Itachi and he felt Sakura freeze in his grip. What were they thinking? They were sure to hit their comrade…Itachi leapt up into the air and felt the bottom of his foot singe as the Chidori barely missed him. And then it became evident that they had meant to chase him upwards as Sasuke jumped in line with him and then Itachi felt an incredible numbing pain pass through his left calf. The Rasenshruiken had just nicked him but he felt the damage down to the cells. He was distracted enough to almost miss Sasuke plunging a kunai towards his arm, one hand already attempting to peel away the grasp he had on Sakura. He pushed himself backwards and landed with a stumble, breathing heavily.

_They've got better._

Itachi had the worst number of handicaps he had ever fought with before. He was determined to keep Sakura with him, so she kept an arm occupied. His left foot and leg were damaged by the latest attack, and he was wearing nothing more than a pair of baggy jounin trousers. Bare-foot, with no weapons or armour, against two of the strongest shinobi to come out of Konoha, he should have been flattened instantly. But he was determined. He had earned Sakura and he would keep her. On top of that – he hadn't been called the genius of the genius clan Uchiha for nothing.

"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled. "Genjutsu!"

He was a fraction of a section too late and the Kyuubi container stopped, his eyes rolled up in his head, a look of terror on his face. Sasuke ran towards him to disrupt Naruto's chakra flow and Itachi took advantage. A wave of shruikens and fire sped towards the boys and Sasuke just managed to seize Naruto and pull him out of the way. Itachi had a brainwave.

"Sakura." She looked up at him and her eyes were brimming with tears. She was as confused as she was terrified and she was itching to join her friends and fight. Itachi didn't intend to give her the opportunity. "Get on my back. Cling on as closely as you can without obstructing me. Don't let go if they catch onto you."

Fighting every step of the way, Sakura clambered onto Itachi's back and held on tight. Now the boys could not attack from the rear or they risked hitting Sakura, and they didn't stand a hope in hell going up against Uchiha Itachi face-on – especially since now, he had both hands free.

He didn't need to form the seals or say the incantations. Naruto had been freed from the genjutsu but it was too late. Fire and summoned weapons flew from Itachi and several times the boys fell to their knees, fighting off the ghastly visions that Itachi sent into their heads.

He did want to make Sakura fight them. He would have liked to show them just how powerful she was, that she didn't have to sit on the sidelights and be rescued. But with two of them, and put together stronger than Sakura, they could have overpowered her and it didn't matter if his chakra was in her – he could not order her to perform miracles and regain chakra instantly or throw off the boys if they both pinned her down. That was all speculation. He had planned to remove the chakra-suppressing tags on her arms that night, to allow her enough time to build up her strength for the battle.

_I have to end this quickly or I'm going to lose control over her._

He shut his eyes and concentrated.

"Magen: Jubaku Satsu."

Both boys began to struggle, expecting Itachi to appear from the genjutsu trees that ensnared them and cut their throats. However, Itachi intended the very worst for them.

_Tsukuyomi._

Sasuke had broken the genjutsu quickly and managed to turn away, but Naruto fell to his knees and howled.

"SAKURA!" Sasuke looked at him in horror and stared at Itachi.

"What you are doing to him?!"

"First, he saw Sakura dying. Now, now is being killed by Sakura at my request," Itachi said. "She is enjoying it. She is taunting him, preying on his weaknesses, while breaking down every part of his body. He will die now."

"And for you…"

Itachi moved swiftly, faster than Sasuke had ever seen him move. He didn't catch the movement even with the Sharingan. He didn't even see Itachi bend to grab a kunai from the ground as he moved. He caught a flash of pink hair and started towards it, before feeling unimaginable pain as the dagger tore through his abdomen. He coughed and blood splattered the ground. He fell to his knees.

"This is how it ends for you, otouto," Itachi murmured. Sakura was still on his back, completely gagged by Itachi's jutsu, but screaming and crying inside, desperate to do something. Anything. It was a wound she could heal in a matter of seconds. She had to save him somehow…

"Uzumaki is dead. You will die, watching me leave with the only person around here who can cure your wound quickly. There is nobody within miles to bandage your wound. You cannot do it yourself as you are in agony every time you move. And I shall not finish you torment now. Ponder on your failures and die, foolish little brother." He pulled Sakura from his back.

"Now to break you completely." He removed the tags from Sakura's arms. "These aren't necessary anymore." He then wrapped his arms around Sakura's waist and kissed her on the cheek. It was perfunctory, and he twisted Sakura to kiss him again. As Sasuke's blood spilled out across the floor Itachi gathered Sakura into his arms and leapt away into the night.

**1**

_Kuso…I failed again…wasn't powerful enough…_

Sasuke twisted his head with difficulty to look at Naruto's still form.

_And you…you weren't supposed to die. You're not Hokage yet, baka…_

And then Naruto's eyelid flickered.

_What?!_

"Teme…" Naruto growled. One of his eyes was open and he peered out through the crack of it. The iris was still red.

"Naruto…how?" Naruto pushed himself to his feet, groaning and wincing in pain.

"Let's sort you out." He helped Sasuke lie flat and began to bandage his wound. Every few seconds Naruto shook violently and twice he had to turn away to be sick. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he checked that the bandages held and fed Sasuke a blood replenishment pill.

"We're going to have to rest," Naruto grunted. "We'll heal fairly fast, but we know he won't harm her. And now he thinks we're dead, we have the advantage. We will get Sakura back. Sasuke," he turned to the prone Uchiha, urgency in his voice. "I know you have your reasons for wanting to kill Itachi yourself. But now I also want to tear him apart. Will you bear a grudge when, if I get a chance, he is weakened and I begin to hack off his limbs one by one?"

"No," Sasuke muttered. "You can make him suffer all you want. But let me remove his heart before he dies."

The boys sat in silence. They had come so very close and now they had been left in the dust. Both knew there was a long journey coming and they had to prepare.

**1**

**Told you so. I didn't think that Itachi, having found something he truly wants, would give it up so easily, and again this is to show he has not become soft-hearted. He is still cruel.**

**R&R please.**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


	13. Chapter 13

**13****th**** chapter – phew. Never written anything this length before.**

**1**

**Three Months Later**

Kakashi was sitting in the hospital again.

Over the last couple of months, he had signed up for every S-rank mission he could and while he completed them all with his usual efficiency, he was coming back exhausted to the bone and had to be contained to allow enough time for his chakra to build up. If he was allowed home, he swiftly left again to go training, talk to Yamato or Sai, or even Gai if he was the only one around. The other change was that Kakashi had taken to drinking more when he was home. It never affected his job performance but it did not go unnoticed when the Copy Ninja fell off his stool and had to be carried, paralysed with alcohol, to the hospital again. Tsunade could not afford to let such a valuable jounin run himself into the ground and discreetly issued orders confining him to the hospital when he was not on missions.

Now he was sitting, sheet pulled up over his face, left eye closed, on his bed. His hand grasped the orange Icha Icha novel, fingers folded into the pages to keep his space, but he didn't even glance at it. His mind was with Naruto and Sasuke as they travelled from place to place, chasing down Itachi. And Sakura…

Kakashi, above all else, wished he could save Sakura from the hell he was sure she was in.

A month after the battle in the wilderness, a message had come from Suna. Itachi had passed through there under a heavy genjutsu, with Sakura beside him. Naruto had taken advantage of the situation and gone to Gaara, asking for one of Suna's messenger hawks. In his letter, Naruto told Tsunade everything that had happened and his and Sasuke's pursuit of the pair.

"…_we will attempt to send contact from time to time in order to keep you aware of the situation. Do not order our return. You sent us to recover Sakura and we will not return until she is found."_

Kakashi had never liked receiving medical attention, but this was now far worse. Back then, he could request Sakura who always treated him gently but with the greatest respect, and never resorted to attempting to steal his mask to pass the time as the younger nurses had done on occasion. Now he had to deal with a silly trainee nurse, as he rarely needed more than bed rest. Three times a day she came in with a meal and giggled at him, hanging around for too long. He had once heard her out in the corridor fighting away another nurse who, Kakashi later discovered, was actually assigned to him. He rarely hated anyone but he focused his inner rage and self-loathing onto the girl, who was far worse than Sakura had been at age twelve. She couldn't hold a candle to the twenty-one year old kunoichi.

Kakashi put the book on his bedside table and lay flat on his back, glaring at the ceiling. He had not been able to focus properly ever since that message had arrived. He had gone back with Sai, convinced that the others would be quick and bring Sakura back swiftly. It had been nearly four months since he had last seen them, and a month and a half since their last message, sent from somewhere in Iwagakure. They were both under heavy disguise as relations between Stone and Leaf were strained to say the least and both shinobi had a reputation. It had not been mentioned in the letter, but Kakashi thought it highly likely that they would have had to silence somebody by now.

He was also getting increasingly worried about Sai.

Sai still wasn't good with emotions, but the bond he had formed with Sakura was strong enough that he sank into a severe depression upon hearing that Itachi had escaped with her. He rarely drew and when he did the results were far worse than his usual standard – but still brilliant compared to most. The subject was usually Sakura. Sakura sleeping, eating, watching a film – mostly drawn from Sai's point of view. One that had stuck in Kakashi's mind was the top of Sakura's head as she sat on her floor, back to the sofa, in between Sai's legs. A pair of hands that wore Sai's gloves were laced into her hair. He was massaging her head.

Kakashi got the feeling that Sai would have felt inadequate even if the boys had returned, because he had been taken out so early in the mission. This was far worse. The half-shirt Sai wore clearly showed the amount of weight he had lost. Kakashi heard that Ino had taken to going round to his house with food, sitting in his kitchen and forcing him to eat something. Kakashi didn't know how Sai tolerated the loud blond, especially since she would just constantly remind him of what he had lost. Nonetheless, he was glad somebody was keeping an eye on him.

Sighing, Kakashi reached across to the bedside table Icha Icha, and his hand alighted instead on the three letters the boys had sent. They had evidently decided to keep communication to a minimum in case anything important was intercepted. Kakashi picked up the first one and perused it.

"…_Gaara asked if he could come along to help – he feels he still owes Sakura a debt in Suna's name for helping destroy the murderer of the First Kazekage." _Kakashi snorted. Naruto was still blind sometimes. Gaara was softened by Sakura's demeanour and while his feelings were currently incapable of approaching a romantic level, he was certainly very fond of her. Of course, the former Bijuu container wasn't about to admit this to anybody.

"_We told him while help was welcome, this was a very personal mission for us. We gave him all the details of our battle with Itachi, and he promised to let us know if Itachi ever entered the city again. It seems inevitable that Itachi will have to pass through again at some point – he has to keep moving or we will find him easily. I'm so scared for Sakura. Kami knows what he's doing to her."_

Kakashi shoved the paper away. He didn't need to read any more. He knew the letter off by heart, as he knew the other two. He desperately wanted to restore his strength and resume the chase, but Tsunade had ordered him to stay in Konoha for the time being. They had already lost two of their strongest nins and had no idea when they were going to return. They could not afford to lose another one.

**1**

Naruto and Sasuke were travelling across the border from Iwakagure to a smaller, non-shinobi country at that point. They were getting hopeful. The trail was stronger here, although Itachi had held them up severely by choosing to pass through Stone. They could not transform, as any jounin could have picked it up, and they could not even afford to mould chakra. They had been on foot for the past four days and getting increasingly irritated. Sweating under their disguises, both were greatly relieved when they moved out of the hostile territory.

Naruto had been painting his face to cover his all-too-distinctive whisker marks, and both had worn the wide hats of the Country of Water with large grey cloaks. Most people assumed they were poor travellers, or merchants choosing to hide their wealth to avoid bandits. A few times, robbers had held them up, and they had left a groaning pile of men behind them. Sasuke had kept his Sharingan turned off the whole time. On occasion, they had run foul of enemy shinobi. They left no trace behind of what had occurred.

Shortly after they crossed the border, Naruto removed his hat and knelt by a stream to wash away the paint caking his face. Sasuke sat with his arms resting against his knees, propped up against a tree.

"Naruto."

"What?"

"I think we ought to keep these clothes on." Naruto looked at him, and Sasuke didn't bother to wait for the question. "We are too distinctive and attract too much attention as ourselves. As travellers, we will pass beneath most people's notice." Naruto nodded and picked up the hat again.

Over the last few weeks, they had had scraps between them a number of times, as both boys got frustrated with their lack of progress. But they both had a single goal in mind and it became clear that Kakashi had been right, a long time ago. Working together, Sasuke and Naruto formed a formidable team. Those they had had run-ins with had been dispatched quickly and efficiently. Where possible, they relied on taijutsu and kendo, making themselves out to be proficient fighters as opposed to trained shinobi. Naruto had come up with the useful technique, after they had disposed of three Iwa nins, of summoning one of his toads, who took the bodies into the other dimension with them. Thus, they left no clue of how the shinobi had been killed.

But the trail kept varying in strength, and once, in the former country of Otokagure, it had vanished all together. The boys had stopped and Naruto created a circle of Kage Bunshin to go out and pick it up again. It had taken two precious days of their time to find it again, heading north this time. Every now and again, they found spots of dried blood along the way. From enemy shinobi or from Sakura, they didn't like to think about it.

Every night, Naruto and Sasuke dreamt about Sakura. They never shared these with each other but if they had, they would have been shocked at the similarity. They both imagined Sakura, fighting spirit intact but body broken, curled in the corner of the room in a fleapit somewhere while Itachi ruled her, conducted her every move with a precision that Sasori could never have obtained from his puppets. They both imagined her having to submit to Itachi – every second of her life a nightmare she could not escape from.

**1**

As it was, Sakura was at that point housed in the most opulent apartment she had ever seen. Itachi had disposed of a travelling lord and his retinue, stolen his identity papers and, under a heavy genjutsu, went to a hotel the lord was known to frequent. Sakura was disguised as his wife. As they stood at the reception, staff scurrying around them, Itachi held Sakura's hand and looked at her. It looked like a caring gesture, but Itachi's fingers were like an iron trap and the look was a warning. _Don't do anything suspicious._

Three months.

In that time they had stayed in all manner of places. She had become so hopeful in Suna, as they were actually two streets away from the Kazekage tower. If she had just had one opportunity she could have bolted and been safe. But Itachi never let his guard down and they moved on. Away from a tiny flat with sand in the corners to an overnight place riddled with damp, to a temple. That had been strange – moving amongst the peaceful orange-clad monks, observing a life so wholly different from her own. And now they were here.

In the three months, Itachi had seemed quite lax with his security. He had allowed her out, but the chakra remained in her system. She had nearly sweat out all of it when he replaced it in her sleep. If he told her to return in thirty minutes, her body would do so, no matter how her mind struggled against it. The first time, she had been so frustrated because she believed she could actually fight it up to that point. Itachi had actually gone out somewhere, so she returned to an empty room and sat curled in a chair, crying. It was the fact that she was completely unguarded and yet she could do nothing, and he would come back. She would appear to be a perfectly obedient wife.

Sakura considered Itachi letting her out for walks as a sign of cruelty as opposed to any kinder motive. She caught glimpses of true married couples, laughing happily together, children, genins training, life going on unhindered and normal. And herself, wandering around inside a bubble, observing but unable to join in.

In all other aspects, Itachi had actually acted like an attentive and doting husband. When they passed through a festival in Mist, she was freezing. The moment Itachi noticed her shaking, he beckoned her to follow him into a clothes shop, where he bought a thick, high-neck black cloak for her to wear. Sakura had disliked wearing it at first – it was entirely too reminiscent of the Akatsuki robe – but it was very warm and as her teeth were no longer chattering she could not help but feel a little gratitude towards him.

Whenever she was hungry, they ate. Whenever she tired, they rested. She rarely vocalised her needs to him but he always seemed to know. Either that or they were beginning to work in sync, needing the same things at the same time. Sakura did not want to think too much on that.

Along the journey, they had crossed the bridge that was being built on her first serious mission as a member of Team 7. Sakura had looked back at it after they crossed, did a double-take, and then could not suppress a snort of laughter.

'The Great Naruto Bridge.'

Itachi paused to wait for her, a vaguely curious look in his eyes. That had been two weeks after they had left the battleground, and the first time she had made any sound of amusement. He looked at the sign and smirked. He had walked over the bridge before, but not really noted the name. Sakura turned to him.

"Itachi-san…"

"Itachi." Sakura paused, and then continued, apparently ignoring his interruption.

"There's a place near here which I really should visit. I need to pay my respects." Itachi's brow furrowed in curiosity. She could tell he was wondering if one of her Konoha comrades had fallen here.

They only walked for five minutes before stumbling across it. The headstones were wrapped with beautiful flowers and the garlands Sakura had draped around them were withered, but still in evidence. However, Sakura felt a jolt of anger.

"What the-" she cast her eyes around the area and when she failed to see the object, she actually growled.

"What is it, Sakura?"

"Some teme has stolen Zabuza's sword."

**1**

Itachi had again been caught off guard by that. _How does she know who Zabuza is?_ However, he explained, in a bored monotone.

"When my brother was travelling with Team Hebi," he stated, "he was accompanied by a former Mist nin by the name of Sugietsu whose ambition was to collect the swords of all of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen. They passed this way and Sugietsu promptly stole it. My brother did not attempt to stop him."

Itachi had a long term plan. He wanted to keep Sakura by his side for as long as he could foresee, and to win her heart he would have to slowly poison her mind against his brother. It was the first drop into her ear of a poison that would cause her to slowly turn against Sasuke and – hopefully – towards himself.

Sakura had knelt before the graves and began to tidy them, murmuring to herself. Itachi looked down at her.

He could see through the genjutsu he created, but to many people she would be completely unrecognisable. To them, her hair was black and waist-length, and her emerald eyes had turned to sapphire. Her face shape was changed slightly, as was the style her hair was in. Coupled with the black cloak he had bought, it was enough to ensure that people who could casually recognise Sakura – say, from the Bingo Books – would not see through her at all. Occasionally Itachi had to alter the look to fit the description of an identity he had stolen.

Now, in their magnificent rooms, was such an example. Her hair was dark brown, shoulder-length, but in a sleek, solid wave as opposed to her normal choppy cut. Her eyes were brown, and she was a fair bit taller than usual. She was also dressed in an elaborate kimono, which looked devastating on the real Sakura but didn't quite go with her fake persona.

**1**

Itachi went into the bathroom and Sakura began to untie her obi. She hated the cumbersome dress and wanted to return to her usual clothing as fast as possible.

Ever since the battle, Itachi had dictated her every move, what she wore, how she walked, when she spoke. He was very precise in his instructions usually and there was no loophole, but today he seemed to have left one open and she gratefully took advantage of it. She was designed to fight, not sit around in a pretty kimono. Back in her old clothes, ragged as they were, she felt like herself again. It had been a while…

She had been deeply depressed following their flight from the boys. She remained in hope that somebody had got to Sasuke before he died, but she was convinced that Naruto was gone. Nobody had survived the Tsukoyomi, save Sasuke and Kakashi – both Sharingan bearers.

In that time, Itachi had occasionally approached her and she often submitted, just for something to remove her mind from her situation. It was nothing like the passion of their first night together. Even with Itachi's hands all over her, his breath hot in her ear, she rarely felt anything more than the lethargy that constantly clouded her mind. So he had withdrawn a little, apparently choosing to give her a little more space until she was ready to return his advances with the enthusiasm of that first time. She wasn't sure why he hadn't tired of her already and killed her, but he probably had something else in mind.

She knew he would come out of the shower and begin to kiss her, and touch her, in an attempt to revive her feelings. Once a shudder would have gone through her, but now she simply felt – acceptance. It was what would happen and things would go easier for her if she co-operated.

This wasn't defeatism, however. Sakura had realised something that might someday spell her freedom, if she could time it perfectly. There was a light at the end of the tunnel for her…and darkness at the end of Itachi's.

For all his power, Itachi was going blind

**1**

**I think this chapter is pretty weak, sorry. I needed this chapter to set up the next one.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Sorry for the delay, everybody. The last chapter was a transitional one and I had this one planned out, but re-read it and realised that a lot of facts were missing or changed from the ones set earlier in the story. Needed to do some major editing. Hope you don't all hate me :S**

**1**

Itachi sat at the low table in the centre of the living room, eyes shut, wearing nothing but a pair of jounin trousers. He was planning out the next step.

He had Sakura's body, and her mind bent easily to his will. Sometimes, he could ask her to do a certain task and she would, without him utilising his chakra. Slowly, he was sure, he was winning her heart with acts of thoughtfulness. He was tender and considerate – for once, because he wanted to be. He did have the ulterior motive of gaining her love, but many men across the worlds were doing the same for the women they had set their hearts on.

He saw Sakura as his, and he actually wanted to protect her. A level of jealousy suffused with this meant that he was always controlling and always cautious. His Sharingan was almost never off. He had barely slept in weeks and the dark lines under his eyes deepened. He still exuded an aura of latent power but his already lean form was beginning to waste and he appeared frequently haggard. His chakra barely had time to be built up again before he needed another genjutsu to cover his and Sakura's tracks. For the first time he could remember, he was exhausted.

He took care to enjoy what he had – lying next to Sakura at night, breathing in the smell of her hair, one arm wrapped possessively around her waist. He gave them time to behave like a newly wed couple, enjoying meals together, going to see the sights of whatever place they were in. Or simply dozing with her under a tree, cloud-watching. It had become one of his favourite pastimes.

Itachi opened his eyes and frowned. The table appeared to be wobbling and splitting into two. There was a definite blur to the edges as well.

There was such a simple solution to healing his eyes. He just needed to keep the Sharingan off for as long as it took for the damaged chakra lines in his eyes to heal. But since he was fourteen, he had rarely had the Sharingan off at all. Hunted by numerous ANBU, and later his brother, followed by the Kyuubi container and his team, Itachi needed to stay alert at all times. And now, in his present situation, he did not have the luxury of turning it off when he was not sleeping. Ever.

The first time he and Sakura had been together after the flight from the battlefield, she had appeared willing. As he had reached the heights of ecstasy, she had produced a kunai from under the pillow and with lightning speed brought it around his back and plunged it down. Had Itachi not kept his Sharingan activated even then, she might just have managed to stab him.

He had not punished her for the transgression. To do so would place in him firmly in the position of captor and master, with Sakura as the slave. It would not result in good relations between them.

He felt most distressed about his deteriorating eyesight because it was robbing him of the ability to admire Sakura. He used to enjoy reading the expressions in her eyes, or looking at the curves of her body. Now the curves did not appear as defined and he could only just see the edges of her eyes. Her pupils were lost to him in a sea of shimmering green.

Maybe…I should turn it off…nobody knows we are here, after all… 

Itachi mentally began to turn off the chakra piping to the Sharingan, when his eyes nearly exploded with pain. Itachi pitched forward, clutching the edge of the table, nearly vomiting across it. The agony in his eyes sent a shockwave into his brain, causing almost all-self control to vanish.

Itachi screamed.

As swiftly and unexpectedly as the pain had appeared, it was gone. Itachi slumped across the table, gasping. Sweat poured from his body. He had never experienced anything like it before. He had been prepared to tear himself open with a kunai just to end the pain.

The screen leading to the bedroom opened and Sakura came tearing out. She stopped, staring at him. The might Uchiha had cried out in pain…she was probably wondering where the person who had struck him was.

Still hoping for a rescuer, Sakura? 

"Sakura…aid me for a minute…" He didn't need to tug on the chakra. She was swiftly by his side, lifting him carefully into a sitting position. Her eyes and hands brushed over him in a quick examination, before she began to rattle off questions as though she was back in Konoha hospital. Itachi grunted in reply to each, before holding up a hand to stop the flow.

"I have no intention of sharing with you what I was doing before I cried out." Sakura glared at him.

"I can't help you unless you tell me what caused the pain!"

"I attempted something… strenuous, and failed. It put brief, enormous pressure on my brain and I lost control of myself for long enough to make the noise you heard. It appears to have cleared now. You can go back to your room."

Sakura nodded. Itachi had long since taught her that asking further questions when he was finished speaking was pointless.

"Ano…may I take a walk around the town? It's stuffy in there."

"Yes. However, in these guises, I will be expected to accompany you. Please allow me half an hour to weave the genjutsu again." Sakura nodded and left. Itachi began to think.

He knew what had gone wrong, now. The chakra lines required to activate and deactivate the Sharingan had to be turned on and off in a precise order. Usually it could be done without thinking. However, he'd pulled in the wrong place, triggering a nerve that would never normally be touched. The shock had nearly shut his brain down.

He'd lost the ability to turn off the Sharingan. In that case, it was only a matter of time until he went completely and utterly blind.

Itachi was a previous ANBU member. His hearing, sense of smell, touch and taste were such that he technically didn't need his eyesight – but nobody likes to go blind. On top of that, his Sharingan would be useless if he could not fix on a target. He was going to have to take Sakura away to somewhere reasonably remote, and fast. It was a pity they could not enjoy this luxury more, but in crowded areas chakra signatures got mixed and without his eyesight he could make a fatal mistake.

**1**

Itachi was unaware that Sakura knew full well about the trouble with his eyes. She didn't know the specifics, but she was willing to bet Itachi had attempted something with the Sharingan that had internally damaged him.

Sakura had chosen to bide her time for now.

Since the failed attack on him as he mounted her, she had decided it was best to wait until he was completely blind. There was still enough vision in those eyes to detect odd movements, and people supposedly in the throes of passion do not usually tuck both hands under the pillow. The action must have looked forced enough to arouse suspicion in Itachi, even in his distracted state of mind at the time.

But hope was growing daily. She had given away a little of it then, as she raced from the room, half-expecting to see Sasuke in the process of gutting Itachi like a fish.

She didn't really find Itachi's company objectionable any more. He didn't tend to order her around so much as make requests, which were only enforced if she refused out of stubbornness. But the lingering image in her mind of her two boys, lying bleeding in the dirt, kept her cold to him. She was convinced they were both dead by now. How come they hadn't found her otherwise?

Thinking about it, she could imagine why. In Itachi's original plan, he had wanted them to be found. He had actually left a trail out for Sasuke. But now he seemed to want nothing more than to be let alone. There didn't seem as much of a cruel streak to him now. And if Uchiha Itachi didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.

Nonetheless, Sakura prayed for a miracle.

A shadow fell across the screen.

"Sakura, I need to change. We will go then." She opened the door to him and Itachi stepped in gracefully, before halting. As usual, his eyes brushed over her with a look of appreciation that left Sakura blushing a little as well as feeling slightly sick. He then looked away and frowned.

"Sakura, please pick me out something to wear. You have a good eye for it." Itachi's clothes lay in neat piles by the bed. As a boy born in a noble family, he knew full well what he could wear to suit any occasion and himself. He gave himself away to Sakura in that instant – his eyesight was now so bad he could not even tell where his clothes were.

Nonetheless, Sakura complied, and Itachi was soon dressed in a magnificent silver and black outfit befitting the station of the lord whose identity he had borrowed. Two oval rubies adorned the collar, each with an identical imperfection – a small black fleck in the centre. Sakura could not help but stare at the jewels, so reminiscent of Itachi's eyes. Had the person who cut them done so to remind people of the hypnotic power of the Sharingan?

Oblivious to Sakura's train of thought, Itachi helped her tie the obi on her kimono, before offering her his arm. Sakura slipped hers through the crook of his elbow and they left the apartment.

The town was small but very beautiful. The buildings were crafted out of some white stone and there was greenery everywhere. The whole place sat on a deep blue lake and as they walked around, Sakura felt prickling in her eyes.

_Sai would like this place._

There would be a lot to inspire him here. The people were mostly civilians, but living a fairly peaceful, active life, most looked happier and healthier than most of the shinobi she had seen in Konoha. The different faces would give him something to sketch and the complexities of the landscape should keep him entertained for hours. She wondered if he had been involved in the mission to save her at all. He must have fallen behind with Kakashi if so.

Sakura shook her head and looked away. It was a little bit chilly, despite the clear air, and Itachi was warm beside her. It was one of his most irritating attractions. They spent a lot of time in cold places after leaving Suna, and she had been drawn to him by his body heat, of all things. Anger and fear aside, Sakura couldn't help but feel highly embarrassed at the way her body reacted to him.

As if reading her mind, Itachi pulled her closer to him, taking the measure of drawing her into his cloak. The people around them gave the pair a startled look. The lord Itachi was impersonating did not have a reputation for being tactile, and that Itachi was being so affectionate to his 'wife' was causing some rumours. Itachi seemed to genuinely not care.

Sakura, casting around for something else to concentrate on than how close he was, noted posters informing all people interested that there was a festival that night to celebrate the news that the local daimyo's wife was finally pregnant. She gave Itachi a look and he nodded. That they were at the point of communicating without words terrified Sakura.

As they walked silently back to the hotel, Sakura twitched. Something had just caught her attention, snagging her sixth sense although she couldn't detect any familiar chakra. Something was recognisable, and comforting, and Sakura felt herself drawn to it, following her instincts. Itachi allowed her to tug on his arm. It was not the first time she had lead him to something that had attracted her attention, and she got the sneaking feeling he actually enjoyed the unpredictability of being dragged along to experience something new by his 'wife.'

They wove through a few streets before Sakura even knew what had caught her interest. It was a scent, and with it carried connotations of warmth and safety. Sakura knew she hadn't smelt it in months and wondered what on earth it was. She continued walking, following it until they came to a stop in front of an open-air restaurant.

Sakura let a small gasp of laughter escape, and then shut her eyes to suppress tears. It was a ramen bar.

The last time she had even been near that scent was when Naruto died.

Itachi was looking at her with a deliberately bland expression. It was his version of expressing suspicion. Sakura fought back the tears and the lump in her throat.

"Itachi-kun, could we have some ramen? I haven't had any since I was c…_left_ Konoha." Itachi didn't like references to the fact that her departure from Konoha was not entirely voluntary. Nonetheless, he nodded, although gave her a curt reminder that they needed to get ready for the festival that night.

Sakura didn't mind. This would be her way of paying tribute to the Kyuubi container.

As Itachi lifted the flap for Sakura to walk in, she gasped.

"Ayame!"

The daughter of the ramen store owner in Konoha looked up at her, smiling.

"Welcome to Ichiraku Ramen! I take it you have sampled our goods before?"

"Yes!" Sakura felt Itachi's hand give a warning squeeze on her shoulder, and she remembered the genjutsu. She reigned in her joy at seeing somebody she knew and, stammering, concocted a cover story. "I came to Konoha once and tried some – had it recommended to me by a ninja boy in orange." Sakura chuckled woodenly. "I wondered how any shinobi could get away with wearing that!"

Ayame's smile stiffened. Evidently she knew about Naruto's death. "Yes, well…"

Sakura continued to smile, feeling her cheeks ache. "So what brought you here?"

"Well, thanks to the impromptu advertising that boy did for us, our business could afford to expand. My father wanted to be the one who let me stay in Konoha, in safe, familiar surroundings, but he's getting a bit venerable and I told him I could cope perfectly well on my own." Ayame's false, customer-service smile didn't slip during her dialogue, and she reached for a couple of menus. "Can I get you any drinks?"

Itachi ordered a bottle of sake, and Sakura could not help but stare. In the four months they had spent together, she had never once seen him with alcohol. He sipped carefully from the little saucer and Sakura became momentarily absorbed watching the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed. He immediately poured himself another, and held it up to her.

"To you, my darling," he said, and drank it quickly. Sakura twitched as she felt his chakra pulling her hand forward to rest on his thigh, the other tipping some sake into a saucer for herself.

"To you, my love," she replied. She winced as the alcohol burned it's way down her throat, but felt a little instant relief for which she was grateful. What had prompted Itachi's actions just then?

Ayame cooed.

"You two are so lovely!" she smiled, before turning to Sakura. "You're lucky to have so considerate a man." Itachi actually chuckled, a low, brief sound with little humour, but he pulled Sakura onto his lap.

"I'm the lucky one."

**1**

Itachi had noticed her watching him as he drank and became aware yet again of how beautiful her eyes were, what a contrast they made to her pale skin. As he pulled her close Itachi muttered into her ear.

"Well done."

Sakura had successfully distracted Ayame from wondering who they were, and without him having to 'instruct' her. He had to be winning, now. Admittedly he had felt some unease at Sakura's wish to sit in a ramen bar, somewhere nobody of their false class would usually do. He had also known about Naruto's habit and realised that the over-brightness in her eyes was caused by sorrow. Both were certain that Naruto was dead, and while Itachi remained alert for any hunter-nins or Konoha ANBU on a mission, he was sure Sasuke could not have survived. He knew Sakura still lived in hope.

After the meal, he thanked Ayame, and then gently but firmly caught Sakura's hand, intertwining their fingers.

"We had best get back to the hotel," he said, loudly enough for the people milling around to hear. "You want time to make yourself look your best for the festival now, don't you?"

He thought she already looked stunning, but sadly the kimono did not go with the genjutsu and Itachi hoped to find something to suit both characters. He enjoyed that part of being with her – decorating her, taking care of almost every need and whim she could produce. Most of the time she didn't give him a reason to do it but he wanted her to look spectacular tonight.

And he outdid himself. He kept on the cloak with the rubies. Despite his poor vision he could just about see the black flecks and the design amused him. But he was more concerned with Sakura.

She was dressed in a stunning, jade green kimono, embroidered with silver and gold in a landscape pattern. Little silver birds flew upwards from the fields ending at her knee, following the trees up to her waist and one small one rested at the top of her right breast. The obi was a slightly darker green, trimmed with silver thread. Her hair was elaborately pinned up and a necklace that Itachi had bought for her adorned her throat. It was more of a silver collar, a smooth torque, inlaid with emeralds. Itachi felt his breath catch once the picture was complete. She was _perfect_. She was actually looking at him shyly, like a girl on a date, waiting for his verdict.

"You're beautiful, Sakura." Itachi held her close, nuzzling her neck, drinking in her scent. She smelt like spring. He kissed her and for a few minutes they were wrapped up in each other, as though their pasts had evaporated and all that was left was the here and now.

Itachi released her and then offered her his arm.

"Shall we?"

The sky was dark and the streets were packed. Thousands of lanterns were hung out to light the way, kanji for various attributes painted on them – peace, love, serenity, joy…there were Kabuki players in the streets, faces masked with paint, and Sakura was suddenly reminded of the Sabaku boy she had healed in Suna. Children were running around underfoot, squealing and laughing, as various game and food stands were set up. As the lord's child was going to be born in the Year of the Dragon, a large dragon supported by twenty pairs of human legs wound up and down the streets. Gongs were banged and there were snatches of music everywhere. All around the stall-holders were trying to get attention, selling a few of their wares.

Sakura and Itachi wandered around arm in arm for a while, just enjoying the experience. It was the most relaxed Itachi had felt in a long time, and he savoured it. They tried a few games together and Itachi took her onto a rooftop to watch the spectacular fireworks for which the region was known. She held his hand and actually gave it a little squeeze, and Itachi was suddenly glad they had gone into the ramen bar. It was as though she had been able to say goodbye to the life she had lived.

Utterly content, Itachi failed to notice something crucial for the first time. In the streets below, two suspicious-looking characters wearing the clothing of Water Country civilians were pushing through the crowd, not looking to left nor right, paying no attention to the clamour around them.

**1**

"Are you sure, Naruto?"

"Ah. The original lord was murdered but all his identity papers were stolen, along with most of his stuff. If anybody but a high-level nin was found with them, they would be caught and executed. Since the lord is still running around, we can assume Itachi killed him and is currently masquerading as him."

"What if it's somebody different?"

"Then we claim the reward for capturing the lord's murderer. For Kami's sake, teme, we have no leads at all. This is a chance, however slim, so we have to take it!" Sasuke nodded and they continued to search through the streets.

Naruto and Sasuke had had no clues at all to go on in their travelling. They had had to wander at random, hoping for clues. It had been a frustrating three months; Sakura and Itachi seemed to have gone to ground completely. Now they were reduced to grasping at straws and both boys' nerves were being frayed. They had dealt with a number of red herrings that Itachi had presumably set up to throw ANBU off. Now they were just guessing and praying that somehow this lead would be worth something, that they would finally get even a glimpse of Sakura to know that she was all right.

The festival wasn't making things easy. Every now and then they would catch sight of something pink and start towards it, only to withdraw. Sifting through the crowd was difficult, and Naruto's eyes turned red as he began to lose grip on his patience. Those who saw it beneath the brim of his hat got out of his way as fast as possible. Sasuke grabbed his shoulder.

"Calm down," he ordered. "We really don't want to attract attention." Naruto huffed and looked upwards.

And froze.

Sasuke stared at him, wondering if Naruto was about to have a seizure. Instead, the boy pointed towards the roof of the building further up the street.

There was the impostor, cloaked in high-level genjutsu. He had a woman with him, also covered. Sasuke took the risk of a chakra flare and switched his Sharingan on. The doujutsu penetrated the technique, and Sasuke sucked his breath in sharply.

"It's them, Naruto."

**1**

**Again, sorry about my lateness. The next chapter is going to have a lot more action.**

**R&R please!**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


	15. Chapter 15

This one's going to be relatively short – things come to a head next chapter

**Yes, I know it's been a while. I will point out I have been working 7 days a week for the last six months in an attempt to save money for the next stage of my education; therefore I have had next to no time to concentrate on my fanfiction. Strong apologies and enjoy the next chapter. **

**I don't own Naruto. If I did, it would be out even more infrequently than it is now.**

**1**

While Naruto's blood boiled at seeing Itachi with his arms around Sakura's waist and Sakura doing nothing whatsoever to wriggle away, he had to admit the circumstances were fortunate. Sakura was watching the fireworks and Itachi's attention was all on her. If Sakura had noticed them, she definitely would have made some reaction that drew Itachi's attention.

He turned to Sasuke. Both boys had managed to keep their chakra from flaring on sight of their target, but now Naruto was unsure what the next step would be. Since they had been travelling together for so long he accepted that Sasuke was better at tactical thinking while Naruto provided the bulk of the firepower and diversions.

Sasuke was glaring up at the pair on the roof. When he began to speak, Naruto's attention was entirely on him, but the younger Uchiha kept his face tilted upwards.

"You use the crowd as cover and find where they are staying. Itachi thinks you are dead, so if he sees somebody who looks a little like you he will not get twitchy and run again. I'm going to set up a trap system. To avoid civilian casualties, we need to flush Itachi with Sakura out of this town and straight into our grasp. Change your hair colour, take off the hat and blend in with the crowd."

Sasuke and Naruto had taken advantage of their months of fruitless wandering to develop old jutsus further. They had worked out together how to create smaller versions of the Henge no Jutsu, so that only small parts of the body were changed. They required a lot less chakra and usually passed below other shinobi's attentions. Naruto changed his hair to a dull, mousy colour – his usual blond was far too conspicuous – and threw the hat away. He nodded at Sasuke briefly before moving into the stream of revellers.

It was strange. Here he was surrounded by civilian innocence, people celebrating with a mass murderer hidden in their midst. They had no clue of the stress the dowdy-looking boy mixing with them had been under for the past four months. They had no idea that within a few hours, Kami willing, that Sasuke was finally going to gain revenge for his clan.

Naruto walked deliberately aimlessly from stall to stall, trying games, buying food and stopping to look at some street performers. Always he kept an eye on them. He was getting worried. Sakura seemed completely comfortable in Itachi's arms. If the angle was right, she actually appeared to be leaning into him, using him as a support. Naruto shut his eyes for a second and allowed his head to clear, and when he opened them again Itachi and Sakura was gone.

_Kuso!_ _Sasuke is going to kill me!_

Even as Naruto's heart felt like it was going to fail in horror, the pair reappeared, standing only five feet away from him. Naruto knew that if he looked over at them directly, one or the other would notice and catch his eye. They were shinobi, after all, and even with the henge on him they would recognise his eyes.

Sakura-chan…she's so close…

Naruto did not dare shut his eyes again, but forced himself to face the fire-eater in front of him. When Itachi and Sakura moved away again, he gave it a few seconds before following them. The pair meandered through the crowd. At one stall Itachi gave Sakura a stick of dango and she ate the little dumplings quite happily. Naruto looked at her with longing.

Sasuke had been training Naruto how to see through illusions. Naruto wan't especially skilled by he could just about see through Itachi's. He could see just how stunning Sakura looked as herself. The kimono was the same shade as her eyes and the delicacy and intricacy of the details upon it seemed to suit her perfectly. Even in disguise, people stared at her and made way, men watching her with a vaguely predatory look in their eyes. As long as Itachi was with her, none of them would make a move. If they could see her as she truly was, men would be falling at her feet and the women would be dying of envy.

Eventually Itachi gave Sakura's arm a little tug and whispered into her ear. Naruto bristled but remained alert, and followed them as they began to move again. This time there was purpose to their steps and they stopped in front of the doors of the grandest hotel in the region. The daimyo and his wife were staying there, and Naruto felt a grudging admiration for the thoroughness of Itachi's disguise. The lord he was impersonating knew the daimyo intimately, and one false move could betray him. And yet his cover remained safe.

On the steps of the hotel, Itachi cupped Sakura's cheek in his hand before kissing her. The crowd swirling around them made plenty of room and Naruto heard people muttering about how tender the lord had suddenly become with his wife, and whether there was soon to be another celebration. Once the pair had disappeared into the hotel, Naruto knew he was not getting in there in his current attire, so he took the opportunity to leap onto a roof and scream. Itachi touching Sakura, Sakura not fighting, the thought that Itachi might leave her with a child…

"Dobe. What are you yelling about?" Naruto whipped around to face Sasuke. Sasuke took one took at the red-tinted eyes and changed the subject. "Did you find where they are staying?"

"Hai. Hotel no Taiyo. Security will be tight."

"That's of no concern. We will face them the next time they are out together. I've chosen a crowded marketplace – anything Itachi might attempt to do to us could result in backlash, injuring himself or Sakura. He will flee. I have set up false traps and trails now; tonight I will arrange the main area. He will be forced along our route towards the battleground, where we will pin him."

Naruto nodded, and then voiced a thought that bothered both of them.

"What if Sakura attempts to stop us killing him?"

Sasuke hesitated.

"We would have to incapacitate her as well. Remember, the original mission was to retrieve her; she must come back to Konoha with us, and if she aids a missing-nin she automatically becomes one. You know the procedure following that." Naruto's mouth thinned and he turned away.

**1**

Sakura was confused. Standing on the rooftop, Itachi's arm around her waist and his face buried in her hair, she had felt something approaching contentment. She was relaxing around the Uchiha genius and wasn't regretting it. It wasn't until she was inside the hotel and changing for the night when she actually thought of how Sasuke and Naruto would have reacted had they seen the kiss on the steps. What was more, she found herself not caring as much as she thought she would.

Her heart twinged and a lump grew in her throat remembering them, of course. But she felt some vestige of comfort and happiness in Itachi's arms and nothing could change that. She would fight her impulses because she knew it was what she had to do; she could never forgive Itachi for killing her two best friends. However, Itachi was gentle, careful, complimentary and respectful; things that Sasuke had never been. And as Sakura thought of the younger Uchiha now, she was actually relieved he was not alive to see her finding peace in his murderer's arms.

She would never fully settle around him because of Naruto. She knew what horrors had been inflicted upon her blonde friend before he died in that crater. She had heard Itachi telling Sasuke what he was showing the Kyuubi container, and the thought that she had been involved – even in his mind – in his death was disgusting to her.

She knew he couldn't be alive. Nobody could survive the Mangekyo. But still hope flickered in her heart. While she and Itachi had been strolling through the marketplace, she had felt somebody's eyes on her. She had turned to catch a glimpse of cerulean eyes, and she felt a jolt of joy. But then they had met her gaze, and it was a beggar child, scrawny, with red hair plastered to their scalp with grease. At her request Itachi had given the child some money, although he warned her it was foolish.

"In all probability, that child will spend the money on the games and sickly food, and make herself ill. She is not old enough to know what she truly needs to survive."

"She should not be old enough to have to endure poverty," Sakura had murmured. "Even if it has consequences, I'd like for her to have a little joy from this festival." Itachi had squeezed her hand gently and nodded.

Now they lay in bed, twined together, Itachi's eyes hooded, his fingers idly playing with her hair. He liked to touch her, even in a non-sexual way, and it was interesting; Itachi wasn't the type to waste movements. He seemed to derive enjoyment from it. Sakura felt her eyes drooping under his administrations as his fingers pressed circles into the tendons in her neck. His Sharingan was on, as usual, and as her vision fuzzed Sakura felt as though she was lying next to Sasuke. Her body instantly tensed up.

She'd been right, months ago, when she thought that Itachi was playing tricks on her mind so that she would never be able to look at his brother in the same way again. The thought of being with Sasuke, lying next to him, sleeping with him, was physically terrifying.

Itachi began to murmur soothing words at her, pulling her closer to him. She burrowed closer to his warmth and opened her eyes to look at him. His long hair spilled over the pillow and here and pink strands that had broken loose were mixed with it. The dark lines under his eyes were very deep and while he was as coldly good-looking as ever, he also seemed exhausted. She brushed a thumb along one of the lines, not missing the sleepy smile that crossed Itachi's face. It transformed his face. The faint lines across his forehead faded a little, and the Sharingan looked much better in a face that was properly smiling, not just smirking.

Itachi's fingers continued to massage the tension from her neck and her eyes lowered and closed as Itachi kissed her cheek.

**1**

The next day dawned. The sky was locked away under steel-coloured clouds and the temperature was unbearably humid. There didn't seem to be a single breeze to soothe the waiting shinobi's skin and Naruto was actually gasping, trying to suck air from the heavy atmosphere. Beads of sweat stood prominent over Sasuke's face. They had their Water Country gear on again and were hideously uncomfortable. Fortunately, due to the likelihood of rain most people were wearing similar attire in the streets below.

They were on a rooftop, about five blocks from the hotel, waiting for a tag that Sasuke had placed in the entrance to go off. It sensed anybody who bore the Sharingan and emitted a siren that only the placer of the tag could hear. That way they could stay out of sight without compromising their chances at catching Itachi as he left the hotel.

They had discussed what would happen if Itachi were to come out alone. Initially they had thought they could go for him anyway, and release Sakura later. Naruto pointed out that without having to keep hold of Sakura at the same time as fighting them off, Itachi could well deviate from their plans and injure them as much as possible, drop his cover, run back to Sakura and move on to the next place. If Sakura came out alone – which was very unlikely – their mission would technically be accomplished and they could head back. However, killing Itachi had become as much part of their personal mission as retrieving Sakura was. The actual decision to use Sakura as bait in that situation was never said, never discussed. But it was made. Both boys felt filthy for it.

They justified the decision by agreeing that if Itachi was left alive, he could come after them again, and again take Sakura from them; this time ensured they were both stone dead before leaving.

They had had a single trade of ideas about how to kill Itachi in the most vicious way possible. Both wanted to leave his eyes open so that he could see the Death God coming for him. However, it was again Naruto who had the flash of insight. In any of the circumstances they had thought of, Sakura was present at Itachi's death. She had been with him day and night for four months solid. Seeing him die would be traumatizing enough for her, without having to hear him cry out in agony as her two boys murdered him.

All these thoughts were going through the boys' heads until they were verging on crazy.

"I wouldn't mind," Naruto grunted, "if it wasn't so damn hot."

Sasuke nodded, too tensed up to speak.

"I'm going to get more water." Naruto stretched and cracked his spine. "Ouch. I'll only be a minute."

Sasuke thought about making him wait, but it didn't seem likely that Itachi and Sakura would leave the nice, air-conditioned hotel in this weather. Naruto didn't wait for his assent and jumped down from the rooftop. Sasuke sat down and wiped a hand down his face, relieved for a bit of time to be alone. For the amount Naruto spoke these days it felt as though he was alone, but Naruto was physically there most of the time. It made Sasuke uncomfortable. Who knew what Naruto was thinking? His sole mission originally was to save Sakura. He would only "beat up Itachi" if Itachi was in the way when they found her. Now, he seemed as intent on letting Itachi's blood drain itself dry as Sasuke was.

Sasuke suspected it was because of the relationship aspect between Sakura and Itachi. Naruto got jealous normally if anybody asked Sakura if she was free for a date. The thought of his most dangerous enemy even touching her was probably making him worse than he had ever been before.

Sasuke had in his pack two seals given to himself and Kakashi before they left. If Naruto achieved two tails, the seal would work; any more, and all Sasuke could do was get out of the way. If Naruto lost his mind altogether and went to four tails, he could injure Sakura – apparently, he had in the past – or even kill her. He had shown remarkable self-control lately, but if Itachi proved especially difficult he could only last so long before the Kyuubi pulled him into the cage and took over. Sasuke could use his Sharingan to suppress the Demon Fox's Cloak, but it required a lot of chakra and if Naruto was drawn in there was nothing he could do.

Naruto returned and as he landed softly on the roof, Sasuke heard a high-pitched whine. Clipping a scope to his eye, he jumped into the air and zoomed in on the front of the hotel. Itachi and Sakura were exiting together. Sasuke removed the scope and motioned to Naruto.

"They're out. Let's go."

The boys moved swiftly over the roofs to follow the couple on the ground. Sasuke at various points planned to let his chakra flare in a manner which would set Itachi's danger senses tingling and shepherd him towards the marketplace, but this was not necessary; they were heading that way anyway.

It was a weekend and the square was packed. In their noble disguises, Itachi and Sakura could move through without too much hindrance, but they were still shoulder-to-shoulder with the many other patrons of the market that day. Itachi was keeping a firm grasp on Sakura's hand. Just as they reached a tight knot of people that could not be moved just by status, Naruto and Sasuke stood at their pre-designated points on the surrounding roofs and let their chakra flare as strongly as possible.

Itachi and Sakura both felt it and their heads jerked up. Sasuke and Naruto wore masks of the hunter-nins of Mist, to ensure none of the citizens that day linked the damage about to be caused with Konoha. Sasuke let his chakra be felt more strongly than Naruto's, so he gained the most amount of attention. Itachi and Sakura were staring up at him in disbelief, exactly as he wanted; Naruto's presence really gave an edge in this situation.

On the opposite side of the market place to Sasuke, Naruto was performing a long series of hand seals. He had allowed Sasuke to tutor him in some methods of chakra manipulation for the purpose of their plan, and as he slammed both hands down on the rooftop he forced as much chakra through himself as possible.

"_Cage of Death!"_

Over the open roof of the market place, the open windows and the alleyways and doors leading in, a web of wind chakra appeared. The element was finely honed, and the four shinobi could hear the sharp wind rushing through the web. To make contact with it would instantly paralyse any ninja.

There was chaos. People were screaming and attempting to run away, but had to gather into a tight bunch in the middle of the square upon realising there was no way to get through. Itachi was holding Sakura tightly to him and turning his head, keeping his eyes shut. Sasuke knew how this was going to work. With his eyesight failing, Itachi had to sense the placement in the chakra and was going to find the one tiny, weak point Naruto had deliberately left in.

He found it.

Dispelling his genjutsu and leaping up and away from the crowd, Sakura still firmly held to him, Itachi headed in the direction of the two just-big-enough holes in the web, covering an alley. To even brush against the chakra would be instant failure. That outcome would suit Naruto and Sasuke just fine, but their primary reason for this was to get Itachi as far away from the civilians as possible before proceeding to do any actual damage.

Acting on pure instinct, Itachi threw Sakura through one of the holes, keeping himself as straight as possible as he jumped through himself. The web over the marketplace disappeared and only that alley was now sealed off. Itachi swept Sakura onto his back and began to run.

Sasuke had done well. Itachi was following the exact projected route out of the town and into the woods; Naruto kept his wind cage covering the roofs so Itachi could not leap up and out of the way, and there were traps and exploding tags blocking all other routes along the way. Itachi realised almost instantly he was being herded, but if he was determined to escape he had to put on a turn of speed and keep going. Every time he tried to change direction something of Sasuke's exploded in his face. They were getting close to the main gates, however, a huge open space, and Itachi didn't see how the two pursuing ninja were supposed to corner him there.

Naruto, sweating hard, crossed his fingers over each other.

Itachi entered the space in front of the gates to find thirty differently-attired Mist shinobi waiting for him. They all had blonde hair, though. Itachi looked around wildly. If he went to fight a group of them another could be produced and take away Sakura. With his eyes failing he was having to rely on instinct and chakra signatures, and he recognised Naruto's chakra now.

"Jinchuuriki!"

In his arms, Sakura looked up at him, started, and then over at the two shinobi who had just landed in front of him. The boys removed their masks and glared at Itachi – both pairs of eyes burned red, and both had a sadistic grin on their faces.

"Naruto," Sakura whispered, stunned.

Itachi, for once in his life, was at a loss.

"How…?" Naruto's grin stretched wider.

"I ripped the seal off the Kyuubi's cage just before you completely took over my mind," he said. "The Kyuubi absorbed me but you could only see my form with the Tsukoyomi. Once you completely mentally destroyed the Kyuubi, you just pushed him back into his cage, and I reattached the seal."

Sakura made to run to Naruto, and was stopped by a hard grip on her shoulder. Itachi was paler than ever and looked actually scared for the first time. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling him flush against his chest.

"She's mine," he said quietly. "You're not taking her from me."

"She was never _yours_," Sasuke growled.

There was silence as Naruto's bunshins looked on at the scene, tensing themselves for action.

Itachi was gone in a flash, speeding through the gates and into the forest. Two miles away was a clearing, and that was where Naruto and Sasuke intended to trap him once and for all. Naruto released his clones, and the boys leapt into the woods, following Itachi's trail closely and waiting for the moment he stepped into the field. Once he set foot in it, there was no leaving. A trap barrier had been erected and every time Itachi tried to leave he would be thrown back into the field

It didn't take long. From a short distance ahead Sasuke felt Itachi's chakra flare in alarm as he realised in his panic what he had stumbled into. The once-great Konoha ninja was losing his grip on his fear of losing Sakura, and was making mistakes.

Perfect.

The boys arrived in the field, glaring at Itachi, although Naruto was unable to meet his eyes.

"It ends here, Itachi," Sasuke stated. "Give Sakura back."

**1**

**And for those of you who thought I'd forgotten about this fanfiction – HAHAHA finally got it up. Although there are probably only two of you left watching me now :S**


	16. Chapter 16

My word

**Looky look! Two chapters up at once, because if I put this up on its own I'll lose half my readers!**

**My word. So many lovely reviews telling me to continue and thanking me for not giving up; thank you all so much. In answer to those who enquired, I was working in a popular pub-restaurant as a chef and barmaid. Fortunately, I have now just enough money, and am now only working evenings, so I have more time to write (finally). Somebody told me there is now fanart for this piece – but I can't find any? Can somebody direct me to them?**

**Anyway, onwards…**

**1**

Itachi had experienced in his life hatred, unbelievable pain both physical and mental, sorrow, and near-death experiences, but he had never truly been scared. Not as he was now. He maintained control over it perfectly as he had been trained to do, but the fingers that dug into Sakura's skin gave him away to her. His vision was badly blurred but that came second to his fear of losing her. He was as much a slave to her as she was to him.

He had genuinely intended to test his little brother's values when this all started, and had somebody told him it was all going to end here, with him clinging to Sakura and desperately trying to figure out a way out of the trap Sasuke and Naruto had created, even he might have had to laugh. He smelt her skin and her hair, felt the line of her body held flush against his, saw a wave of delicate pink hair pass by his eyes. He could never just give her up. But he didn't see how he could fight his way out of the situation without leaving an opening for one of the boys to get to Sakura. He didn't want them even _touching_ her.

Sasuke and Naruto did not wait for him to act. They both charged at him swiftly, moving around the sides and producing long lengths of chakra rope. Itachi shifted across the clearing, and was aware of Sakura struggling under his grip. Of course, now, confronted with her friends, she would never side with him. If they won, he would be killed and she would be lost. If he killed the boys, she would never forgive him or stop fighting against him.

Itachi lost his temper. Eyes wide and angry, he knocked a pressure point in Sakura's neck, suppressing her consciousness for a minute, and threw her to the side of the clearing.

Then he turned his attention to the boys.

Judging by the rope in their hands and the lack of metal projectiles flying about, the boys intended to capture him and humiliate him before killing him. Or maybe they were foolhardy enough to believe they could actually take him back to Konoha. Either way, he wasn't going down without a fight.

He felt a loop of rope land around his neck and tighten quickly; Itachi quickly replaced himself and the clone exploded into dozens of crows that flew at Sasuke and Naruto's faces as Sasuke pulled sharply on the twine. Naruto thrashed about and tore at his face, while Sasuke blew apart the genjutsu effortlessly. Even in this situation and with his muddied senses, Itachi could feel the tension in Sasuke's body as he used his Sharingan. The boy was not yet in his twenties and already the Uchiha inheritance was taking its strain upon him.

Itachi didn't have long to think about it, though. Within seconds Sasuke was upon him, wielding a sword. It was not the katana that Orochimaru had given him – that was undergoing tests back in Konoha. This was one of a pair of a lighter type of sword, a pair that had been carried around by Hatake Kakashi in his youth. Chakra blades.

Itachi moved his body back just in time to avoid the slash at his abdomen. Sasuke kept coming, the swords flashing in his hands. Itachi reached into his cloak and pulled out the Fuuma shruiken that had been strapped to his waist. There were already lengths of wire attached to it, and Itachi managed to get just far enough out of reach to send it spinning around Sasuke. The Sharingan-controlled manipulation of the wires was the only thing he could use the Sharingan for against Sasuke. Right now, Sasuke's eyes were infinitely superior to his, and to lock Sasuke in Tsukoyomi was to provide Naruto with an opening. Itachi couldn't afford to do it.

The wires attached to the large shruiken bit into Sasuke's body as it pinned his arms to his sides. Itachi intended to give the weapon a sharp yank and tear Sasuke to pieces, but out of nowhere came Naruto, barreling straight in with a Rasenshruiken. Itachi was forced to let go and move away while Sasuke disentangled himself. Itachi vanished and reappeared behind Naruto, kunai at the ready to slit his throat. This time Sasuke interfered, grabbling Itachi's wrist and flinging him into the air.

Sasuke and Naruto's teamwork had improved in leaps and bounds, and Itachi's exhaustion from overuse of the Sharingan, his inability to turn it off, and his three months of constant high-level alertness was taking its toll on him. Two Naruto's clones managed to grab his ankles from underground and nearly pulled him into it. He jumped away and landed on the other side of the clearing, breathing hard.

**1**

The boys were struggling as well. They had also been living an extremely hard life for four months, and on top of that they were both having to keep a strong grip on the hatred that could blur their focus and in Naruto's case, lead to the release of the Kyuubi. He was keeping a good grip on himself so far. His eyes were red and twice the Kyuubi had called out to him, offering more power, but he had grunted and shook his head. He did not want to risk even one tail coming out in case Sasuke could not suppress him in time. Above all, his mind was on Sakura, still lying unconscious on the ground. More than anything he wanted to stop fighting and go to help her, but Itachi kept looming up in his vision, distracting him. Naruto wanted Itachi's blood for what he had done to Sakura. He had smelt their union on them at the last confrontation, but he didn't blame Sakura for that – he was certain Itachi had tricked her in some manner. The thought only increased his rage at the errant Uchiha, however, and the red fog that constantly swirled in the recesses of his mind threatened to take over.

He slapped his hand onto a summoning tattoo on his wrist, and a short, cleaver-like sword appeared. Naruto had made moderations to it to make it lighter and easier to use. He rushed Itachi, backed up from the side by Sasuke with the chakra blades. Itachi leapt backwards several times and then somersaulted upwards as the blades met beneath him, an action which, had he stayed still, would have skewered him from several directions.

There was no doubting the boys' killing intent now.

Sasuke opened a small seal of chakra on his arm and pushed himself across the clearing at Itachi at speed that could not be seen but merely sensed by non-users of the Sharingan. He knew Itachi's eyes had been weakening enough to disable use of the Mangekyo, and wanted to force him to use the bloodline limit as much as possible in an effort to completely blind him. Itachi was once more put on the offensive but quickly shifted it, throwing senbon in all directions and making Sasuke slow so that he could dodge the metal projectiles. Itachi's aim was deadly and if a single one struck it would instantly paralyze him. A couple of them hit Naruto, but fortunately, as those were not directly aimed at him, they struck him hard in the leg, causing him to tumble to earth from the jump he was attempting.

Sasuke then attempted to trap Itachi with shruiken wires, threading them around the prodigy until it seemed as though there was no way out. But Itachi's agility sent in spinning in and out of the loops of sharp wire, which would have shredded him as he had attempted to do to his little brother earlier, landing on his hands beneath Sasuke and launching himself forwards with a Fuuma Shruiken at the ready to cut Sasuke in half.

The battle continued long into the day, the three combatants sweating profusely, of equal level to block and attack as much as possible. All of them sported numerous cuts and Sasuke and Naruto had large burns from where Itachi had caught them with a Phoenix Fire technique. The clouds opened and it began to rain, making the footing harder and causing all of them to slip at vital points. The ground was churned to mud and the trees were scarred with weapon marks.

Naruto, at long last, felt the dregs of his blue chakra being used up, and decided he didn't have a choice any more.

He shut his eyes and allowed himself to achieve the one-tail level of the Demon Fox's Cloak. Immediately Itachi's fight was made harder; Naruto had learnt to manipulate the chakra precisely, and two gigantic, clawed red hands shot straight towards the elder Uchiha. Itachi dodged but was swiftly blocked by Sasuke, and was seized by the chakra and hauled towards Naruto; inside the Cloak, Naruto was waiting with his sword to impale him.

Itachi made a snap decision. His hands flew together and he turned his head, launching a giant fireball at Sasuke. Naruto, in haste to save his friend, dropped Itachi and sped across the clearing to pull him out of the way. In the split second that Naruto's attention was distracted, Itachi was upon him, pulling the sword from his grasp-

-and embedding it in Naruto's side.

**1**

Itachi had tapped the wrong nerve in Sakura's neck. She regained consciousness much faster than he had anticipated – he had hoped for her to be completely uninvolved in the fight – and awoke to the sound of Naruto's howl of pain. Instinct taking over before her mind knew where she was, she moved straight over to him, gasping at the size of the blade sticking out of him. Swiftly she removed the weapon and stopped the flow of blood, cursing her lack of medical supplies and the rain that was spreading the blood everywhere. Naruto was tough, but it was an especially savage injury that had actually cleaved him open on his left side, just below the ribs. He was bleeding everywhere and she got covered in it, as well as being soaked in mud to the knees. He was lucky his arm hadn't been in the way or it would have been taken clean off.

Straining to control her chakra, she accelerated the re-growth of the cells, taking maybe a few years off Naruto's lifespan; but it would save his life now. She reached into Naruto's pouch for the basic equipment, herbs and bandages, stuffing them into the wound. In those moments she had been aware of conflict going on but had simply prayed she and Naruto were out of range.

Itachi and Sasuke were flying across the clearing so fast Sakura's eyes blurred; various weapons had been summoned and were ricocheting off each other, lodging into the trees and mud around them. Light gleamed off the wet metal of their weapons. There was a wide semi-circle around Sakura and Naruto. Both combatants were making an effort not to involve her in the fight.

But she _had_ to get involved. It was a fight to the death between two people she did not want to die. But what to do? To aid one was to hinder the other and to do so would result in the opposing party taking offence and maybe killing her as well. It was at that moment she realized she couldn't side with the boys against Itachi any more than she could side with Itachi against them.

Then things happened very quickly, forcing her to make a decision.

Itachi and the boys had already been low on chakra and Itachi was constantly fighting the agony caused by his eyes, and the more Sasuke pressed his advantage the more chakra Itachi was forced to draw on. Naruto pulled himself to his feet, coughing blood, and ran to land behind Itachi, placing both hands on the ground at exactly the same time as Sasuke did. They had not had the opportunity to practice this technique before and it could quite possibly kill them from chakra overuse, but from the moment Naruto had regained his feet they decided. At least one of them would be killed otherwise.

Together, they bellowed.

"Summoning Technique: Cold Circle of Hell!" Four spiked iron pillars sprung from the earth beneath their hands, reaching seven foot tall. Energy crackled between them and Itachi felt his breath stolen away as he was caught in a trap of freezing air. He was completely immobilized. The rain that fell into the square immediately froze and turned to lumps of hail. The boys stood up and Sasuke fetched Naruto's sword from where Sakura had thrown it. He began to walk towards his brother. He was soaked, water dripping off his weapon.

"This is the end, aniki," he stated. "We have summoned an actual segment of one of the hells that awaits you after death. No mortal can withstand it. We cannot enter it, but you will be so utterly frozen that by the time we deactivate it you will be unable to move. I could just leave you there to die; but I want you to die by my hand alone." Sasuke and Naruto's hands formed a seal and they released the jutsu. Itachi keeled over onto the grass, face down.

Sasuke walked over to him and grabbed him by the hair, wincing; shards of ice wound their way up his wrist. He pulled his brother to his knees and tugged his hair to expose his neck, swinging the sword upwards.

And then Sakura was there, clinging to Itachi and gasping at the coldness of his skin, blocking the way. Sasuke looked at her, not comprehending.

"What are you doing?"

Sakura's teeth were chattering. Her hair was plastered to her face. She could hear Itachi wheezing in and out as he struggled to breathe through ice-laden lungs. "You c-c-can't," she whispered. "Please don't do this, Sasuke."

"Sakura," Naruto said, coming around to stare at her, "We have to. This man kidnapped you and attempted to use you for his own purposes! He tried to kill me and Sasuke, and Sasuke has to get revenge."

"Why?" Sakura spat. Sasuke looked nervously at Itachi, who was looking straight ahead, unseeing; the cold had destroyed his vision. Sakura's body heat was warming him faster than expected, and neither her nor Naruto had the chakra to perform the summoning jutsu again. "Why does he have to get revenge? What does he have to live for after it's done?"

Sasuke looked murderously at her and for one moment it seemed as though he would strike her. Naruto crouched down to her eye level, threading fingers into her hair, ignoring the cold she conducted from Itachi creeping into his hand.

"Sakura, please," he said. "We can't hurt you. We've come all this way to save you. Konoha needs you, I need you, Sasuke needs you, and Kakashi and Sai are going to be destroyed if we come back without you. And Itachi…" he looked across at the Uchiha, for the first time in his life not frightened of the crimson orbs, "what does he need you for? What can he offer you? The only thing you would keep doing is running. I know that right now you have strong-" Naruto struggled with the words - "_feelings_ for him, but you have to come back with us."

Sakura buried her face in Itachi's neck. "I'm not moving." Naruto looked at Sasuke, worried. What could they do now?

"Sakura," Itachi rasped. She looked at him and saw now that he was blind. He still couldn't move his arms, but leaned in her direction, causing Sasuke to let go of him. "Sakura, Uzumaki is right. I cannot offer you anything. And now I have lost my sight, I can never see you again, and it would only be a matter of time before I was killed. And if you are with me, you'll be killed as an accomplice. I don't want that to ever happen to you. I want you to die old and happy with the life you've lived, and I can't give you that. So please, let go…let otouto take his revenge. I am already defeated. He just has to make the final move."

Sakura began to sob. Holding onto his sodden robes, she cried onto his shoulder, and Itachi, with the strength that had make him legendary, managed to move an arm to hold her close. They stayed like that for a few moments, and then Itachi whispered into her ear, so quietly that Sasuke and Naruto did not hear.

"I love you, Haruno Sakura."

She pulled back, startled, and his arm fell into place at his side. Sasuke stepped forward and lifted Itachi's hair out of the way again. Naruto placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder to pull her back, but she leant forward and gave Itachi a last kiss. It was so cold. So fitting for this end.

Then she had to turn her back because she could not watch his death. Naruto took her into his arms and could not celebrate the moment because she was there for all the wrong reasons. She tried to melt into Naruto, smelling the blood and dirt and beneath that the scent that was Naruto himself, feeling his damp clothes on her skin, trying to block her mind to what was happening behind her…

But she knew as it happened the sound of metal meeting flesh, and the dull thump and squelch of Itachi's head hitting the mud, would never leave her.

Sasuke sighed heavily. It was done. Looking over at Sakura, still turned away, he felt a shiver of remorse; she would never look at him without thinking of this again. Carefully and respectfully, he laid Itachi's body out and put the head back on the shoulders. He left a ghastly trail of blood behind him.

He went towards the others and placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder. Naruto picked her up in his arms and they left the clearing. Sasuke placed an explosive tag on the body to completely destroy it once Sakura was out of earshot.

Then the three of them were gone, leaving the soaked, battle-scarred land behind them and a body with no memorial.

Half an hour later, the clearing was silent but for the swish of the breeze through the grass. The animals that had hidden during the roaring and stamping of the humans looked out cautiously from their safe-holes, wondering if it was over. A moment later, every living thing disappeared again, as Itachi's body collapsed in on itself with a thump, before exploding into hundreds of loudly squawking crows.

**1**

**As you may have guessed from that, this is not the end…battle scenes are hard to write.**


	17. Chapter 17

The last chapter

**The last chapter! I hope you've all enjoyed this and don't get too mad about the ending. Thank you to all my reviewers, for keeping me going, and to whoever it was who got cross at me and told me off for leaving four months between an update! My next project is a NaruSaku Beauty-And-The-Beast-style story. I hope some of you will have a look! **

**Once again, I don't own Naruto – or this would happen!**

**1**

Two months later…

Sakura wound her way home from the training grounds, staring at the floor. Itachi's death at the hands of her boys still weighed heavily on her mind. She could still see them, crystal clear in her mind's eye, strike him down while he was defenseless. Certainly he had done many things wrong, to Sasuke, to Naruto, to her…but she'd spent so long by his side, seeing more of him in four months than others had in his whole lifetime, that she couldn't forget the little things. How tender he could be for her. His generosity. He might have been ruthless and cruel, he had sometimes treated her like a slave for his own twisted gratification, but he had taken joy – unwarped joy at that – at making her happy while she was with him.

She couldn't forget how, back in the subterranean rooms in the wilderness, he had shown himself to be the first one to acknowledge her strength and respect her. She had confused the Uchiha genius, making him feel as he never had before, and he had taken huge risks to keep her by his side. If she hadn't been his captive, it could almost have been…romantic.

It had been good coming back to Konoha, being hugged hard by Tsunade, patted on the back, kissed, and welcomed with tears of relief by almost everybody she knew. At the debrief, report, and necessary interrogation (her subsequently revealed relations with Itachi meant that for a month afterwards she had ANBU following her everywhere), she had managed to co-operate as much as possible and keep control of herself. Kakashi and Sai had actually been the most emotional that she had ever known them. Sai shook her hand and smile and Kakashi had actually hugged her, his visible eye shining with unshed tears.

But when she got home, she had lain down and cried solidly for hours, before sleeping away the terror and stress of four months. She did not wake up for three days and had to be removed from her house and placed on a drip. According to medical reports, her brain was completely unresponsive to mental stimulus during that period.

Despite the rest, she was tired. She didn't work as well with Sasuke and Naruto on a team as she had before, and it showed. Kakashi had taken to teaming up with her versus the boys, and they could usually do quite well. Both Sasuke and Naruto had wound up in the hospital on a number of occasions with injuries Sakura had provided. Kakashi no longer needed to remind her to go at the boys with the intention to kill. She did anyway.

It was exactly two months to the day that day that Itachi had been defeated and they had started the long trek home. Sasuke and Naruto had barely spoken, Naruto contenting himself with occasionally seizing Sakura in a hug, and Sasuke with laying a hand on her shoulder. They let her be, and pretended not to hear her crying in her sleep at night. They had stopped whenever Sakura needed to, and ensured she got somewhere comfortable to sleep every night. They took excellent care of her, but Sakura could not feel comfortable after seeing both of them in blind bloodlust, and she kept her distance. There were other noticeable effects of the time in incarceration on Sakura as well. At one point, they had entered a hotel in a remote area and Sakura had started shaking violently. As they helped her to a seat, the manager had come running over and recognized her. Upon realizing that Itachi had bought Sakura to the hotel before, the boys exited with her swiftly, and they spent the night sleeping on a hillside outside the town.

She still had problems with hotels, and Sasuke never switched his Sharingan on when she was around. They never went on missions together any more as a result – nobody knew what affect the sight of the Uchiha inheritance might have on her. Nobody dared experiment.

It was 11pm already and Sakura had spent most of that day studying medical texts to brush up on what she had forgotten in her 'time away', as Shizune put it. Groaning, she threw on her nightdress and crawled straight under the covers, not bothering to remove the little mascara that still clung to her eyelashes. She'd left the window a little open to accommodate a breeze, but there was an alert system on it attached to the ANBU room and nobody could get in without tripping an alarm.

She slept soundly for three hours, and then her shinobi senses jolted her awake, and her hand swiftly went under the pillow to clutch the kunai hidden there. Somebody was standing in the corner of her room, hidden in shadows.

"Your senses have improved, kunoichi," chuckled an amused male voice. "I was here for only a few seconds before you became aware of me."

Sakura felt her body freeze. She had recognized the chakra the instant she awoke, but she couldn't believe it. He was dead. She had _seen his head rolling across a clearing_ in a land hundreds of miles away. She remained sitting upright in the bed, staring at the man in the corner, kunai at the ready.

He stepped out of the shadows and allowed the moonlight to fall across him. Sakura instantly noted several changes. His hair was shorter, and his ANBU tattoo was gone. His eyes were hidden by a strip of cloth bound about his head.

She had barely a second to assess this before he was sitting next to her, enfolding her in his arms. She remained stiff for a second, as he buried his nose in her hair, holding her close, before allowing herself to relax completely against him. She didn't care if this was a trap, didn't care that she shouldn't be doing this; she was just so relieved to see him again.

It was a while before they moved again, and when they did Itachi's voice had taken a serious tone.

"Uzumaki and my brother granted me a greater favour than they ever could have imagined when they 'killed' me," he said. "Now, the entire world believes I am dead. I am free from the former enemies of Akatsuki, from the hunter-nins of Konoha, from the revenge of Sasuke. Since I met you, I have allowed myself to give in to what I wished to do as opposed to what I was supposed to do. Now I want to do it just twice more. I don't want to be an Uchiha any more; and I want to be with you."

Feeling his breath warm the back of her neck, Sakura shut her eyes. Itachi put her hand under her chin and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

"How did you escape?"

"Uzumaki is not the only person skilled at escaping impossible situations," Itachi replied. "When my body is ripped apart, it can reform – it is a genjutsu so powerful it actually becomes reality. My entire body needs to be destroyed before I can be killed." Sakura nodded, then spoke again.

"Are you completely blind now?"

"Yes," Itachi murmured. "As you may have gathered, I was unable to turn the Sharingan off to save what little vision I had. On top of that, my optical nerves were destroyed by the cold of the jutsu Uzumaki and my brother imprisoned me in. My senses are sharp enough to enable to continue through life without sight, but…I truly wish to see you again." Itachi reached into his pocket and drew out a vial with two pale orbs floating in it.

"You are the only person who will not incarcerate or kill me upon seeing my true eyes. You are the only person who I trust to be skilled enough to perform this operation. These eyes are from a cadaver-" he held up the vial - "I would like you to remove my eyes and replace them."

Sakura was silent for a while, thinking through the proceedings in her head. She took his hand and held it to her face.

"Itachi," she said gently. "It will be a long operation. I will need to check the new eyes for any damage first, and then very carefully detach the optical nerves from your current ones. I will then need to reattach the nerves to the new eyes correctly, without a single mistake. I will render your unconscious, but after being blind for a time, your restored vision will come as a shock to your brain, and things will seem too sharp and too bright to begin with. You will also be susceptible to violent headaches for a while."

"I trust you," Itachi said, and the weight of that statement landed heavily on Sakura. Itachi had been unable to trust anybody, including her, since he was eight years old. Itachi clarified. "Despite everything I did to you, all the pain I caused you, you came to care for me enough to throw your body in front of me as your saviours prepared to kill me. Even if you were persuaded to move, it was your first instinct to protect me, and for that reason I put myself in your charge."

Sakura responded by kissing him lightly on the lips. Oh, how she'd missed him – his scent, his body, the permanent thrill of having a dangerous man in her arms. Something had grown between them in the three months they had traveled together that she'd done everything to suppress and he had done everything to encourage.

It seemed he had won, in the end, as he usually did. Sakura stood up.

"Do you want to begin now? It will take several hours, not including healing, and if I'm tired and irritable tomorrow nobody will consider it unusual."

Itachi lay down flat on the bed as she bustled around him, taking the vial and removing the blindfold. The once-powerful red orbs stared up at her, unseeing, as Itachi began to meditate and calm himself in preparation. As she stood beside him, Itachi caught her wrist.

"Sakura," he whispered. "I've caused you so much pain; I'm so sorry."

Sakura was glad he was still blind at this point. He couldn't see the tears sliding down her face. Carefully, she dabbed them away and cleared her head. Right now, this was just another patient. Keep it together, woman.

She slid a hand around to the back of Itachi's neck and was surprised when he didn't automatically tense. He remained still and calm. She poked the nerve cluster in the neck and knocked him unconscious. His breathing instantly became deeper and more even.

Sakura was afraid to turn the light on in case anybody spotted it and came to investigate, so she continued to work by moonlight. It was strange, removing Itachi's eyes from his sockets. Those eyes that had suppressed her, tortured numerous people, killed many more, lay in her palm of her hand, hers to do what she willed with them. But she did nothing more than place them in a bowl of water, and pick up the first of the new eyes.

This part of the operation was trickiest. She had to push the new eyeball into the socket and then reattach the optical nerves without seeing anything. It was entirely done by feel and the nerves could only be reattached in clumps of ten. Three hours later, sweating, she straightened up, picked up the next eye, and started again.

Dawn had broken, slowly throwing rays of light into the room, as Sakura worked. At nine o'clock she had finished, and flopped to the floor with a gasp. Her chakra reserves were extremely low, and what she needed now more than anything was food and sleep. However, she had a couple of other things to sort out first.

She re-bound Itachi's eyes and re-woke him. His switch from unconscious to fully alert was instant and impressive, and he must have developed an instant headache from the tampering she had been doing, but he just lay there without twitching.

"Ok," Sakura said, drying her hands on a towel. "To allow your body to adjust to the eyes, you need to spend fourteen hours with the blindfold on so that you don't put immediate strain on the optical nerves. You'd best stay here; I'll bring you some-" And then Sakura's body felt the strain of the continued use of chakra over seven hours and without a sound she fainted. Itachi was there, arms out at the ready, and caught her.

He stroked her shoulder and held her close, reveling in the feel of her skin. Itachi's loss of Sakura after four months of her company had hurt him so much he had considered simply not moving from his place in the clearing, and added to the fact he had lost his vision afterwards had nearly driven him over the brink. And here he was, his girl – for she had become his, and he was hers – in his arms, and his vision shortly to be restored.

He sat contentedly for a while, Sakura flopping in his arms, before tucking her into her bed and leaving the room. He knew that Naruto and Sasuke, upon realizing that Sakura had not turned up for practice, would head straight over to her apartment and check on her. He then went down on his hands and knees and did press-ups until his arms weakened and collapsed, wearing out and weakening as much of his considerable chakra as possible. He wanted to be undetectable to the boys when they turned up, and hid himself away.

He knew now he could not keep Sakura to himself. But neither could he give her up completely. Both options would make Sakura miserable in one way, and he knew he could continue existing without her, but not truly living. He could feel joy in things that weren't associated with power now. And he intended to dedicate as much time as possible to her happiness.

He curled up in a cupboard and fell asleep.

**1**

Itachi had been right. As he and Sakura slumbered, it was only two hours before both of the boys _and_ Kakashi and Sai arrived at the apartment, not just to look in the window but actually break in and make sure the Sakura they saw sleeping wasn't a substitution. They all breathed a sigh of relief when Kakashi confirmed it was her, but he began to investigate the cause of the sudden exhaustion and frowned.

"Her chakra system is burnt with overuse," he murmured. "I can't tell whether it was medical jutsus or she was knocking down trees, but she wasn't working at the hospital last night. And she must have drained every drop of chakra into what she was doing to be this out of it."

Sai's fingers ghosted across Sakura's hair, feeling the texture of it. Sai had not been informed of the final confrontation with Sakura protecting Itachi, but he had figured out on his own that Sakura must have felt something for her captor. He had theorized that she had been distant and quiet recently because she was recovering from the mental damage inflicted during her time in captivity, and concentrating on honing her skills again, but after a while he realized that wasn't it. She didn't hit any of them any more outside of training, and in training her focus seemed to be on flattening Sasuke. Sai realized that she couldn't feel relief for Itachi's death and felt some bitterness towards Sasuke for bringing it about. Sai, in himself, was happier despite this, because the unpleasant ache that had sat in the pit of his stomach ever since Sakura was captured was gone. Even if she was changed, she was still Sakura, and Sai was as happy as somebody of his emotional shallows could be.

Sasuke and Naruto looked at Sakura solemnly. She needed the rest; since coming back, she had not eased pressure on herself one bit. She had slipped back into Konoha life, working all hours at the hospital, training with them, out socializing with the other teams, on missions…she barely got more than five hours sleep a night. Kakashi ushered them all out, hoping that when Sakura awoke, whatever she had done to herself would have helped heal her, however slightly.

**1**

Hours later, Itachi woke as the door was pulled open and as his eyes opened behind the blindfold, the world became lighter for the first time in two months.

"Itachi, what are you doing in there?"

Itachi stood, stretching out his back and cracking his neck.

"Your team were obviously going to come and check up on you when you didn't turn up on time," he explained. "I needed to lower my chakra and hide, and chose to sleep naturally to get rid of any residual traces of your chakra in my system."

He heard Sakura suck in breath. It hadn't occurred to her that she could have potentially done to him what he had done to her, right in the beginning; inserted her chakra into him and controlled him like a puppet. Thinking of it now, she didn't want to do it. At that point, she had been his captive only, and something to pass his time. In the three months they had been traveling, he had changed. Presumably she had as well.

Gently, she guided him out of the cupboard and into her room again, sitting him on the end of the bed.

"Have you opened your eyes?" He nodded. "Shut them while I take the binding off. Let the light filter through your eyelids for a couple of minutes, and then you can open them." He obeyed, and she sat on the bed beside him, feeling the heat from his body. She had not turned the light on, as she did not want to attract attention from anybody now. The light seeping through Itachi's eyelids was from the moon.

Those two minutes seemed like an eternity to Itachi. He reached across and caught Sakura's hand, entwining his fingers with hers, and looked straight ahead. There was no fear left in either of them right now. Several times his eyes nearly cracked open and he was certain it must have been hours since she told him to keep them shut. But at long last it came, Sakura gave his hand a squeeze and allowed him to see.

Everything was a vast blur at first, quickly shrinking and gaining definition, and Itachi kept his eyes fixed on a picture on the nightstand, not wanting to see Sakura until his vision was completely cleared. Even when he had first captured her she had been outlined by a slight fuzz in his sight, but now he would get to see her perfectly defined, and not miss one detail.

He turned his head.

Sakura's face was bathed in moonlight, bleaching her skin white, lighting up her eyes and bringing a soft sheen to her hair. Itachi said nothing for a moment and Sakura was looking up at him, confused, wondering if something had gone wrong.

"Itachi…?"

He caught her, dragged her onto his lap and held her close, pulling her so tightly in neither of them could move, and then caught her chin his hand, and angled her head so he could kiss her.

When Itachi pulled back Sakura looked properly into his new eyes. They were an inky blue-black, instead of the jet colour they had once been. As arresting and terrifyingly beautiful as she had once found the Sharingan to be, she infinitely preferred this version. The crease of pain between his eyes was gone, and as he smiled at her, she couldn't think of a more handsome man.

It didn't take long for them to fall together back onto her bed, each of them needing no words to communicate how much they had missed each other, how much they needed each other now. The night rang with their noise and they were not captive and captor, illicit and secret, in disguise and on the run, but Itachi and Sakura, two people had fallen in love with each other despite the universe deciding they shouldn't.

When the morning came, Itachi was gone, but Sakura didn't fret about it. She knew he would be back when it was safe, and would keep doing so. Her little moonlight secret. And if she grew old and people thought she was alone she would always be happy, because she had him.

She got up and dressed and headed to training, and that day, for the first time in two months, she greeted her teammates with a smile.

**1**

**The End. A bit sappy I know, but I was trying to find an original slant on the ending for this pairing – and it's buggery hard now.**

**Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this, and that those of you who have me on Author Alert will keep watching my stories. Many thanks for all the reviews.**

**-Genjutsu-Dragon-**


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